tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66318334329621386782024-03-10T21:07:14.042-04:00The PlutonianAn online newsletter dealing with the nightmarish and the nebulous. Home of Plutonian Press. Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-73640773309019961932024-03-10T20:36:00.003-04:002024-03-10T21:06:43.140-04:00Interview: Robert Morgan <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.43056; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.3719978332519531pt; margin-right: 2.8260498046875pt; margin-top: 18.03741455078125pt; margin: 18.0374pt 2.82605pt 0pt 0.371998pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.88pt;"><br /></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg77e8YEt9ARfcWu54M-oG4XbeUPgQ7IYhuoaRijcYzKagIF3P-Ufys7I0CT3SU5gIAA0SyMMP6_c30nuBFFH3EeF9cnwY2gNZeafalNz9yiOPjsSzwAefOVgaLWi-u3pxK4_JZrUTy_8-Z5Lj3l8XJtDRRZVaZnRfXISBs6Uvhq5eSkrPry0hLj1BfA/s750/tfcXyqmWFwVJ6s8vaVsXZYZhkcg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg77e8YEt9ARfcWu54M-oG4XbeUPgQ7IYhuoaRijcYzKagIF3P-Ufys7I0CT3SU5gIAA0SyMMP6_c30nuBFFH3EeF9cnwY2gNZeafalNz9yiOPjsSzwAefOVgaLWi-u3pxK4_JZrUTy_8-Z5Lj3l8XJtDRRZVaZnRfXISBs6Uvhq5eSkrPry0hLj1BfA/s320/tfcXyqmWFwVJ6s8vaVsXZYZhkcg.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-indent: 36pt; text-wrap: wrap;">Robert Morgan has been one of the most important filmmakers working in recent years. He is a master of the short stop motion animation film. He has directed such masterworks of the form as The Cat with Hands, The Separation, D is for Deloused, Bobby Yeah, and many others. You see his name mentioned in the same category as the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer. And now he has a feature-length film, Stopmotion, out from Wild Bunch and IFC Films. Playing in select theaters now and coming to streaming platforms in Spring 2024. Finally, he is getting the exposure he deserves. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">First off congratulations! I know we die hard Robert Morgan fans have been hoping for this moment! I think I am not alone in saying this is exciting seeing you get the chance to direct a feature film! I understand you won Best Director at Fantastic Fest and won the Special Jury Award at the Sitges Film Festival! This being your first feature film, I am sure there is a lot of pressure and stress having so many eyes on your work and so many critics and reviewers talking about it! How are you dealing with the stress of having a feature-length film out there in the world? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Thank you! I feel good about it. The most important thing is that the film exists and that it exists in a completely pure, uncompromised form. Stopmotion is exactly what it was intended to be. I can’t ask for more than that. Everything else is just noise. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">How did the idea behind your film Stopmotion originate? Was it a film that you have been wanting to make for years or was it an idea that came together after the possibility of making a feature length film presented itself to you? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes, it’s been years in the planning. I first had the idea to make a film about the process of stop motion itself sometime after I finished Bobby Yeah (2011). My first idea was about a living organic camera, which ended up not really being a feature-length idea, so I made it into a short (Invocation, 2013, which ironically stars Stopmotion’s co-writer Robin King!). After that, I felt that the feature should be more of a character study, following around this stop-motion animator as she goes through a crisis. That was the starting point. And this idea married to a second idea that was inspired by the making of Bobby Yeah, where I had the sensation that the film I was making had taken on a life of its own and I didn’t have much say in its direction. That’s really the core of what the film Stopmotion is about: creativity as a hostile entity that’s separate from its creator. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PQKYdzKfziYr3rH8_Smizh9CIzyidztk2MlbSkJBSZ5lJ-hX37xtmTf-EAjVD5ihf0cEPOJfsn0ERauv5dR6NOQwpdZcIEKXxVxrAWgGkO41tMxPxrKwC95A_4UoiQocCNHCLta4KKsTaxQMM02bo-G6bAc0Q4cTKGBAFD8YBXSZ9l21mxDIUD2b3w/s350/StopmotionPosterheadmainimgTsr2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="350" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8PQKYdzKfziYr3rH8_Smizh9CIzyidztk2MlbSkJBSZ5lJ-hX37xtmTf-EAjVD5ihf0cEPOJfsn0ERauv5dR6NOQwpdZcIEKXxVxrAWgGkO41tMxPxrKwC95A_4UoiQocCNHCLta4KKsTaxQMM02bo-G6bAc0Q4cTKGBAFD8YBXSZ9l21mxDIUD2b3w/s320/StopmotionPosterheadmainimgTsr2.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Films that explore the obsessions of the filmmaker and/or the filmmaking process itself, self-reflective works such as HItchcock’s Vertigo, Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio, Bergman’s Persona, Powell’s Peeping Tom, are almost a genre in themselves. I think Stopmotion may fall into this tradition, with a filmmaker primarily known for making stopmotion animation films making a film about a stopmotion animator. What is it about using cinema as self-exploration, as confessional, that draws filmmakers to use cinema as a mirror? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s just a world I know very well. I strongly feel that the process of stop-motion animation contains within it mysterious ritualistic aspects and occult energies that I wanted to explore. I wasn’t really trying to make a confessional film, I just thought it was a fascinating, unexplored subject. I was more conscious that the main character Ella was a “tortured artist” archetype if you like (as in Magic or Black Swan for example). Peeping Tom was an influence for sure, as was The Last House on Dead End Street, another horror film about filmmaking. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">I feel we are really seeing a revived era of horror cinema. There seems to be a renewed vitality to horror cinema that has finally escaped from the banal meta-humor of the 1990s or the lame 1970s nostalgia/retreads of say 2000 to 2010. Horror cinema has found its way again. What role do you feel horror cinema plays in our present reality of pandemics and political uncertainties? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">For me, horror is just a perfect way of exploring the hidden worlds that live inside people. I’m not so much interested in political or social influences in my films, my stuff is more internal and insular. I can’t really comment on how the current world would or should be reflected within horror. I suppose the films will inevitably reflect something of the world we live in, but for me at least, it’s not conscious. I like Edgar Allan Poe’s idea that terror is “of the soul” and that this is its legitimate source. You’re right though, horror cinema seems to be in a good place right now. I don’t know why that is. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The use of surrealist and transgressive humor is a hallmark of your work. I feel that this kind of bizarre humor has become a subgenre unto itself and a lot of the most interesting work today is being done in this realm. I would point to artists and filmmakers from David Firth to Tim Heidecker as examples of people working in this genre. And I feel your works are a vital contribution, works such as Bobby Yeah and D is for Deloused are masterworks in this genre, This kind of ultra reality that satirizes our expectations of what we call the real. This immersion into body horror and laughing at what is found there in the abject and the charnel. There is a kind of unleashing of a primal chaos at the heart of surrealist humor. How do you feel the use of humor is intended in your work and what is it you are exploring? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">I think it’s about the absurdity of existence, and the horror of our inevitable decline and death. We’re all heading there… You can only laugh at it. Underneath it all, we’re just writhing blobs of decaying meat that are trying not to acknowledge the fact that we’re writhing blobs of decaying meat. That’s pretty funny if you think about it haha. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6GyPB8hqE_5krICS7f0DQuGLsNsSS17zO-XBf4W7c-sEbUV2emqdZyozNJWyn2eaHnzd-dWUsTWmgK_SWmnTA5Xmwq8s2YvnZmjURuBHumyBsirp-nkaSnn_32WfbAzim19ItydEMpWT_g3f5z_jSTJu-dplglYvW-fpAF1N-dW0iCsHOZfWFDvj-w/s580/stopmotion-580x326.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="580" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6GyPB8hqE_5krICS7f0DQuGLsNsSS17zO-XBf4W7c-sEbUV2emqdZyozNJWyn2eaHnzd-dWUsTWmgK_SWmnTA5Xmwq8s2YvnZmjURuBHumyBsirp-nkaSnn_32WfbAzim19ItydEMpWT_g3f5z_jSTJu-dplglYvW-fpAF1N-dW0iCsHOZfWFDvj-w/s320/stopmotion-580x326.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">We have talked privately about our mutual love for the fiction of Thomas Ligotti. I am waiting, and certain that it will happen, that a wave of films based or influenced by Ligotti will hit theaters in much the same way H.P. Lovecraft became a cinematic trend in the 1960s and 1970s. It does seem that the best Lovecraftian films are works influenced by the work and not direct translations. Like Carpenter’s The Thing or Scott’s Alien. I think one of the films that I really don’t think is a direct adaptation but certainly captures the feel of a Ligotti tale is Kurosawa’s Cure with its hypnotized characters and its mysterious shadowy cityscapes. Was Ligotti and his malicious puppets in any way an influence on Stopmotion? And would you like to adapt a film based on his works and what works would interest you the most to adapt? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Ligotti was certainly an influence - the puppet theme in particular, and the main character’s lack of agency against these malignant forces, plus the setting of the empty building. We did briefly discuss the idea of adapting The Red Tower as a stop-motion short, didn't we? I think that one would lend itself well to a semi-abstract film. The problem with directly adapting Ligotti into live-action features is that so much of his power comes from the prose. The characters are mostly ciphers and the plots are often barely there. There are exceptions of course, like My Work is Not Yet Done and The Last Feast of Harlequin, maybe The Small People too, but often, the most powerful aspects of his stories come from their vagueness I think, which is tricky to translate into a 90-minute live-action narrative film. The prospect of a wave of Ligotti-esque films is an exciting one though. The vibe is so strong in his work. I haven’t read the screenplays he co-wrote but I can’t wait to get my hands on Crampton and Michigan Basement that Chiroptera Press are publishing. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Lastly, what is next for you? Do you have any projects you are working on? What can we look forward to next from you? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m always working on stuff, but I can’t really talk about them yet! Making films is so hard and unpredictable. Announcing things before they happen is never a good idea in my experience!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-88383982466677645162024-02-06T01:21:00.004-05:002024-02-06T01:32:10.601-05:00Spanish Horror Part Two: Rise of The Blind Dead by Joe Zanetti.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtpDqOKZrGDNcR7PbtpIfJZVWzBgvVYCntzfoH70fCjT1b9PxEN4GsQjuCq5_TxtbDGVxKKlS6FqnYfJmJp2NE8NNAaAjVwOl906LKgpPne-iTFOm6AgoJP67yjDuhF9Eud--WWF2B1XSZqXzjzEzSzEzqwiqa4tvJuFAeIhYhuO6KmbKNZPdYo2pvwA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2975" data-original-width="2056" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtpDqOKZrGDNcR7PbtpIfJZVWzBgvVYCntzfoH70fCjT1b9PxEN4GsQjuCq5_TxtbDGVxKKlS6FqnYfJmJp2NE8NNAaAjVwOl906LKgpPne-iTFOm6AgoJP67yjDuhF9Eud--WWF2B1XSZqXzjzEzSzEzqwiqa4tvJuFAeIhYhuO6KmbKNZPdYo2pvwA=w277-h400" width="277" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">By the early 1970s, Spanish horror was savagely tearing its way through silver screens, domestically and internationally. The Franco regime was also on its last legs, and things began to loosen up a bit in Spain. Censorship was diminishing, and directors weren’t faced with the rigid scrutiny they were accustomed to during previous years. It was this period that saw directors truly making a name for themselves, frightening and offending audiences with bloody and horrific films that would be forever carved in their memories! One director spawned a tetralogy of films that would brand its unholy mark on the horror genre. From the tenebrous depths of his mind, Amando de Ossorio conjured the Blind Dead. They were Templar knights who would return from their graves and crypts, eternally seeking victims to dismember with their old, rusted swords; to tear the flesh with their rotting teeth, drinking the blood to satisfy their infernal desires!</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsJ7qOiYYMrzoXWTZFm_Bll711DeziDUHIl5o5gbkezx78Fyi5ag8x_4UdeC8OnUtzJbFtooWZmR1RYpINeXAfu5-iCVHrESJFTME28C3xTpyD9o46hj8rvXOj4xPyD8aWQZ0pJPFwA1BKsK53ZRelmoppomtyWsN65o_RdbByRUyI7WrJOW6Vl1d4TQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="690" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsJ7qOiYYMrzoXWTZFm_Bll711DeziDUHIl5o5gbkezx78Fyi5ag8x_4UdeC8OnUtzJbFtooWZmR1RYpINeXAfu5-iCVHrESJFTME28C3xTpyD9o46hj8rvXOj4xPyD8aWQZ0pJPFwA1BKsK53ZRelmoppomtyWsN65o_RdbByRUyI7WrJOW6Vl1d4TQ=w400-h235" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span>The first of Ossorio’s four-film undead cycle was </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, aka </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">La noche del terror ciego </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(The Night of the Blind Terror) in Spain. Released in April of 1972, Ossorio’s film was a box-office hit, attracting over 500,000 spectators, and generating over 100,000 euros. More importantly, it gave rise to the Spanish zombie boom, pre-dating the Italian zombie boom that wouldn’t start until the end of the ‘70s! Ossorio took gothic horror elements such as beautiful sweeping landscapes and ancient, dilapidated churches, graveyards, and abbeys, combining them with adult themes and modernity. Audiences were treated to something new and different. The undead knights with their ragged, dirt-covered hooded cloaks and warrior's clothing; skeletal hands and rotting faces with the eyes missing, showing only hollow orbital sockets that look like endless pits; bits of facial hair still remaining, and the phantom horses they ride on. You can smell the stench of death and decay emanating from the screen. They can’t see you, but they can hear your every step, your every breath, heightening the dread! Mixed with these walking cadavers, their gloomy ruins, and archaic, fiendish ways are bikini-clad women, macho and horny dudes, big hotels with giant swimming pools, flash, and pizzazz. This combination of old and modern was a formula not seen in horror cinema. The success of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">would birth three more films, each one being quite different from the other. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Return of the Evil Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1973), </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Ghost Galleon </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974), and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Night of the Seagulls </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1975). Where did Amando de Ossorio get this idea, though? What prompted him to make a series of films about Templar knights returning from their hellish slumber to massacre the living and drink their blood?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBi2-IEf-RFK68E4NzOGJ6LEABRozDAC6wUf59YmZD-kSVUWkKTdUlIfULTGtABbqrUSU2gXm4FrvAekBTGf59N8LNPINmsMaeih1xAzVQ8vy4SKFPb-O2y9Jai1oEWXKTTSaYN6O8z5W0tbJ4javrhkbVbdGnlj7FZFkZss_kv_KqzSzoxpJP6fP1lQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBi2-IEf-RFK68E4NzOGJ6LEABRozDAC6wUf59YmZD-kSVUWkKTdUlIfULTGtABbqrUSU2gXm4FrvAekBTGf59N8LNPINmsMaeih1xAzVQ8vy4SKFPb-O2y9Jai1oEWXKTTSaYN6O8z5W0tbJ4javrhkbVbdGnlj7FZFkZss_kv_KqzSzoxpJP6fP1lQ=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span>Before directing horror films, Ossorio was putting out comedies and spaghetti westerns. In 1965, Paul Naschy (Jacinto Molina) approached him with his idea of making a werewolf film. Ossorio actually turned him down! Seems crazy, but horror just hadn’t quite yet dug its claws in. It was only a matter of time, though, before Ossorio caught on and made his debut horror film </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Malenka, the Vampire’s Niece </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1969). He would also direct </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Night of the Sorcerers </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974) and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Loreley’s Grasp </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974). It was his Blind Dead cycle, however, that would put his name on the map! He was influenced by an 1861 gothic horror story titled </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">El Monte de las Animas </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(The Spirit’s Mountain). In short, it’s about two cousins who go on a hunting expedition with their parents in the Spanish countryside. To pass the time while riding their horses, a tale is told about a nearby hill that is haunted by the spirits of the Knights Templar, and one of the cousins will come face-to-face with the evil. Another influence was George Romero’s </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Night of the Living Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1968). You cannot talk about zombies without mentioning Romero’s classic! The film played in Spain and was considered to be an arthouse work, becoming popular with the underground. It didn’t influence only Ossorio, but other directors like Jorge Grau and León Klimovsky (born in Argentina, but settled in Spain during the ‘50s). Ossorio would begin the zombie boom in Spain and have his cycle of films out before Romero’s </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dawn of the Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">came out in ‘78. It shows that the Spanish were capitalizing on the zombie trend before Romero could even get his second film out and before the Italians as well! Ossorio is careful to make a clear distinction, though, between his undead Templars and Romero’s slow-moving, mindless hordes who are driven to feed on human flesh. He describes them as being mummies who ride on horseback. Every night, they emerge from their tombs to search for victims and their blood, which also puts them in the category of vampires. They aren’t mindless, they know exactly what they want! They also wield swords that they use to stab, slash, and sever! Audiences were treated to scenes of decapitation; limbs being hacked off; women having their hearts removed as they were being fed upon! It’s also worth noting that Ossorio initially received some resistance from producers. The Templars had no cinematic precedent, and producers argued that audiences were only familiar with classic monsters. Ossorio would create his own artwork, showing producers designs and illustrations depicting his vision. These illustrations would be featured in the first film, where a librarian recounts the tale of the knights. It’s this backstory that adds layers to the film.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The story behind Ossorio’s fictionalized Templars is slightly different in each film, but one aspect that remains the same is they came back from the Crusades as practitioners of black magic, engaging in ritual sacrifices of young virgin women to appease a supernatural force of evil origins, granting them immortality. The films never truly state what they worship, but that’s not exactly an important part. Ossorio would draw these ideas from the historical Knights Templar and the charges brought against them by King Philip IV of France (he really wanted to free himself of his debts to them). The knights were arrested and accused of idol worship, having recruits spit on the cross and deny Christ, engaging in homosexual activity, financial corruption, and other charges. In </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, we are given a flashback scene that shows the Templars tying a woman to a torture rack, and two of them proceed to ride up and down with their horses, slashing at her with their swords. The knights begin to drink the blood flowing from her wounds. The story goes that they were arrested and tried by the King of Spain, hung from trees and their eyes pecked out by crows, hence them being blind. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Return of the Evil Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">has a slightly altered story where a scene shows the knights cutting the heart from a woman and eating it. They are captured by villagers and have their eyes burned out and then burned alive, but not before swearing they will return. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Ghost Galleon </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">features a phantom ship that exists in its own dimension, drawing small boats to it so the bloodthirsty knights can feast on whoever is aboard! The navigational log found on board merely mentions the knights and their captain, “The Dutchman,” returning from the east and ex-communicated by the pope for practicing black magic. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Night of the Seagulls </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">takes a rather different approach. It takes place in a coastal village. The opening scene shows the knights worshiping a statue of what looks like a sea deity or demon, adding a bit of a Lovecraftian touch. They cut the heart from a woman and place it in the mouth of the statue. An aesthetic that never changes is the symbol of the knights: a red ankh on their tattered wardrobe, with what looks like a flaming circle around it. The ankh, in conjunction with the sacrifices, symbolizes eternal life through death; they will always come back for blood and sacrifices! With such different stories, locations, and scenarios, it’s easy to think of each film as its own entity; more a reimagining rather than being true sequels, adding an air of mystery and intrigue to Ossorio’s cycle, like mythical tales being retold over time. The actual quality of the subsequent films, though, is an entirely different matter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIVzeYWto3w7YPwDiu-XwruEQvTRN2u1W6sUDMrIvq5Pe_edlIFoN6MIzfHTxIWbZVqBQPJo-Di_ZXlP24HydjXoWxd330E27vDpuc2i-V9hNUH1Qvyk9i5dkE7oLb8Dts1PXSUUKTiN6GHANaZ6OG6e00sR9juIT0DLR6Lk_pvJDzubpCtwwFf1_20w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIVzeYWto3w7YPwDiu-XwruEQvTRN2u1W6sUDMrIvq5Pe_edlIFoN6MIzfHTxIWbZVqBQPJo-Di_ZXlP24HydjXoWxd330E27vDpuc2i-V9hNUH1Qvyk9i5dkE7oLb8Dts1PXSUUKTiN6GHANaZ6OG6e00sR9juIT0DLR6Lk_pvJDzubpCtwwFf1_20w" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span>With the release of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, Ossorio faced very little censorship. As stated before, the regime had dialed down their restrictions for matters of exporting these films outside Spain. Still, though, the films could not be political; however, that doesn’t mean they didn’t contain political commentary! The Blind Dead films, most notably the first film, offered veiled criticism of the Franco regime and its ideologies. The undead knights with their tattered clothing and dreary colors represent a not-so-distant past. The regime was crumbling and would last only a few more years, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t come back! The knights served as a warning for a Spain that was experiencing a shift in ideologies and values. When riding on their phantom steeds, they are slowed down to add a greater sense of menace and fear. It also acts as a sort of time/space displacement; they exist between the past and present; they shouldn’t be here, but they are! The first film begins with scenes of an abandoned village; buildings hollowed out, filled with cobwebs and dirt-covered floors, weeds and vines taking over. Eerie Gregorian chants mixed with a cacophony of creepy sounds emphasize the past and old ways. It immediately cuts to modern living, where men and women are shown swimming in pools, drinking and conversing, and wearing the latest fashion trends. Everything is bright and colorful. This juxtaposition tells you of a collision that will soon happen. The original artwork for the poster shows four knights; two in the foreground holding a terrified woman, and two in the background with one holding a sword with a hilt and blade facing down. The sword acts as both weapon and cross, conveying violence and the divine. They represent a threat to sexual freedoms and identity, an extension of the fascist ideals that embody the masculine in the form of the monk-warrior that was perpetuated by Nationalist propaganda going back to the Spanish Civil War. General Franco was portrayed as a religious and military hero, given names like “general-priest,” “Sword of the Highest,” or “Captain of the Vessel.” This fusion of the religious and military was a symbol of oppression for mainly women, as shown in the films with the knights sacrificing virgin women, or any woman in general. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The first film also features a brief flashback scene, showing a lesbian romance between two of the main characters, Virginia and Betty. They attended a religious school together, sharing a room. Both are dancing around and wearing white see-through gowns. Betty kisses Virginia with a cross clearly visible on the back wall, a reminder that, despite the changes Spain was experiencing, the regime was still there, lurking in the distance, waiting to oppress and terrorize! The following films didn’t contain the layers of the first film. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Return of the Evil Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">did feature some small political commentary in the form of Mayor Duncan, a selfish man who cared little for the people of the village he was governing. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Night of the Seagulls </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">focused more on the superstitions of villagers, and it was these superstitions that prompted them to offer young women as sacrifices to the undead knights every seven years, for seven consecutive nights. With so much to discuss about these films, does that mean they are cinematic masterpieces? Absolutely not. </span></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMoL8d-xmJWF7s-lFtyUuDlTzSOLw90ga6X1eHm92WgpYfaSJJVCYumb8pAjkeKA_-pvl-TC_Pm_5sSuhuA61TDm9PyvBAqh0efxb_-fddBEWqYCv3X8OGCYm1uHIIV82_6ZQ6kxEQU8kjlG3MVorFSrFWLSuijOmTqRY5L6xfudyLHI6PrXgpgP5HpQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1817" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMoL8d-xmJWF7s-lFtyUuDlTzSOLw90ga6X1eHm92WgpYfaSJJVCYumb8pAjkeKA_-pvl-TC_Pm_5sSuhuA61TDm9PyvBAqh0efxb_-fddBEWqYCv3X8OGCYm1uHIIV82_6ZQ6kxEQU8kjlG3MVorFSrFWLSuijOmTqRY5L6xfudyLHI6PrXgpgP5HpQ=w400-h238" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ossorio was always given a small budget to work with, along with a short timeframe. With the success of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, producers were demanding him to quickly make more films. He had to use exploitation production methods to get the films out when the producers wanted them. In the second and fourth films, he reuses footage from </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. He cast relatively unknown actors and actresses. The first film’s open ending had to conclude with screams off screen and a freeze frame. For far-away shots in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Ghost Galleon</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, the ship was a plastic toy shot in a bathtub. The film was Ossorio’s biggest disappointment and most ambitious. This was the case for the other films as well. He stated he never truly got to make the films he wanted because he didn’t have the budget and wasn’t allotted the time he needed. Don’t expect any award-winning performances either. The acting leaves much to be desired, and the dialog, especially in the third film, is laughable at times. Many characters make the most idiotic decisions, and some are so annoying, you want to strangle them! In the U.S., </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was severely watered down. Nudity and scenes of sexual violence and gore were removed to maintain an “R” rating. Even a scene towards the end where the knights are tearing into a woman, and her blood is pouring down on her daughter’s face, her eyes wide with fear! It’s a truly unsettling scene. In one instance, sketchy distributors altered the opening scene to capitalize on </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Planet of the Apes </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1968). A ridiculous narration was added that talks about the conflict between man and ultra-intelligent apes 3,000 years ago. Humans conquered the apes, capturing and torturing them by piercing their eyes with burning hot pokers. The leader of the apes swore they would come back for revenge! Then the title appears: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Revenge from Planet Ape</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. After that, the rest of the movie remains the same! Ossorio’s last horror film was </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Sea Serpent </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1984). It was a huge disappointment for him because of the small budget he was given, forced to use cheap special effects. It was his dream project, and its failure led to his retirement in filmmaking in the same year. He was 66 years old. Despite the flaws and gross lack of character development, Ossorio’s Blind Dead cycle makes up for it with spine-chilling atmosphere, violence, gore, and nudity! The films are available on either Blu-ray or DVD, with varying degrees of quality. A definitive copy of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tombs of the Blind Dead </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was released by Synapse Films, with a gorgeous restoration. It’s packed with special features that give you more insight into his films and Spanish horror in general! With The Blind Dead, Ossorio cemented his legacy, and the unforgettable, unholy knights in the halls of horror history, are still viewed and talked about today! </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEju0cLyevE7QtDTyiqCuTmbrQcxR7xx4rsx5KRoGP6d7TJ9_4Jce0ToTs3qFFy0gcsk79GdgUW5tjyhUgWiuu346KtmXHbJQfAmf2F5oHt0ERn9pjl2KTULS7kihM0DLm4MVJbtL9sqN3G1hQz0SgfQDmvrFpHPA_erjhn5Q6Nanuh4IhlQlNTEfwC_7Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="489" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEju0cLyevE7QtDTyiqCuTmbrQcxR7xx4rsx5KRoGP6d7TJ9_4Jce0ToTs3qFFy0gcsk79GdgUW5tjyhUgWiuu346KtmXHbJQfAmf2F5oHt0ERn9pjl2KTULS7kihM0DLm4MVJbtL9sqN3G1hQz0SgfQDmvrFpHPA_erjhn5Q6Nanuh4IhlQlNTEfwC_7Q" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-60062688189829127642024-02-06T00:52:00.007-05:002024-02-06T23:52:04.335-05:00Spanish Horror Part One: An Introduction To Spanish Horror Cinema by Joe Zanetti. <p style="text-align: justify;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-7af3d678-7fff-fd10-3b18-eb736ff5f06e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAGYaeR-ZenuVwQll2aDo3xzQapWzOfr4_2XCoxRyPwaW-XKZGxo64MJO1webh3buZVXBZbPDpdgoiIgxC6jn4-k7dlvVynVvb-eu1UwCrRvA0XDyPOjF-IK4fgxpYxGLIklwcaxieLfkoIWG7vSvNInQjnv3ckBF2q5O988K0fgzvT-mzUsvWoCiE9g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="570" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAGYaeR-ZenuVwQll2aDo3xzQapWzOfr4_2XCoxRyPwaW-XKZGxo64MJO1webh3buZVXBZbPDpdgoiIgxC6jn4-k7dlvVynVvb-eu1UwCrRvA0XDyPOjF-IK4fgxpYxGLIklwcaxieLfkoIWG7vSvNInQjnv3ckBF2q5O988K0fgzvT-mzUsvWoCiE9g" width="166" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaLFMU6srBo2bQNE1jnZiwMicOxnsfMUUzMw4I2fqT-s_3bMdwKPxu5A_LvDd8kLEk6eNw1_X6iAAaMYmSQrrQubjQ7Mx3fv0u4g3ltoA9mA9K10In8zHAlZsvzzLdD5wt_uRE2-dDfGtTAQf-3OaWf4rjSCRC-1tDNQeNeUfdAwR9rpRwnJV3Z2R69Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1813" data-original-width="1302" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaLFMU6srBo2bQNE1jnZiwMicOxnsfMUUzMw4I2fqT-s_3bMdwKPxu5A_LvDd8kLEk6eNw1_X6iAAaMYmSQrrQubjQ7Mx3fv0u4g3ltoA9mA9K10In8zHAlZsvzzLdD5wt_uRE2-dDfGtTAQf-3OaWf4rjSCRC-1tDNQeNeUfdAwR9rpRwnJV3Z2R69Q" width="172" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin: 22.3527pt 2.1817pt 0pt 0.576004pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 37.08pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you were to ask horror fans about what European films come to mind from the 1960s and ‘70s, the responses would more than likely be what came out of Western Europe, particularly the U.K., and Italy. From Italy, you’d probably hear about the gothic horror films of Mario Bava, such as </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Black Sunday </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1960), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Black Sabbath </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1963), or </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Blood and Black Lace </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1965). It would be blasphemous to not mention Dario Argento’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Suspiria </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1977), or some of his giallo films, mainly </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Deep Red </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1975). Lucio Fulci would be mentioned, too, especially </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Zombie </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1979). The U.K. has always been synonymous with Hammer Horror, along with numerous folk horror films that include </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Wicker Man </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1973), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Blood on Satan’s Claw </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1971), and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Witchfinder General </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.08pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1968). During this period, however, another country in Western Europe was experiencing a phenomenon, rediscovering itself through the lens of horror: Spain! We don’t often hear much discussion about Spanish horror, despite its hefty catalog of films. With the success and popularity of horror films from other countries (this also includes the United States), Spanish horror was often overshadowed, with many films left forgotten. However, Spain is responsible for putting out some of the best (and original) horror films, and Spanish audiences couldn’t get enough of the haunting, bone-chilling visuals; the sex, death, gore, and carnage playing before their very eyes! Viewers were enthralled, thrilled, terrified, and shocked at seeing horrors they NEVER would’ve imagined appearing in Spanish theatres! </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9VVh94P5XtC0pz9wJESNnN63dwmdMXPtZ9K8Xnmo4T57OxpiKXR2JIoFFg1Ons6hrbKU4HfA32dnximGatyhNf2w8dl2Oxz0LKJwO313RaMVDp-e49gA6TbNn-rYqFoq9yZJFl6lDp38on15YGcK2VisgcRST3NZnZpohnYkqLwUBHOyJmRLHBlGgOw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="559" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9VVh94P5XtC0pz9wJESNnN63dwmdMXPtZ9K8Xnmo4T57OxpiKXR2JIoFFg1Ons6hrbKU4HfA32dnximGatyhNf2w8dl2Oxz0LKJwO313RaMVDp-e49gA6TbNn-rYqFoq9yZJFl6lDp38on15YGcK2VisgcRST3NZnZpohnYkqLwUBHOyJmRLHBlGgOw" width="168" /></span></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span> <span> </span></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Why Spanish horror, though? Besides being something new for Spanish audiences, why discuss these films when you could see all the sex, violence, and death you want in horror films from Italy, the U.S., or even France? Spanish filmmakers not only drew from the films they were seeing put out elsewhere, but they took those concepts and made something wholly fresh and original. Some of the most iconic monsters in horror film history CAME from Spain. So, now, you have these creatures and madmen slashing, clawing, and biting their way through the silver screens of not just Spain, but other European countries as well, leaving a bloody trail of severed heads, mutilated bodies, and viscera! Appetites for sex, violence, the weird and macabre were MORE than satiated. Undead knights on horseback; mad scientists conducting horrifying experiments; resurrected noblemen; the werewolf who is forever cursed, never to experience love; naked vampire women, and more! Insane jazz sequences, gregorian chants, ambient sounds that creep under the skin and haunt you for days. Evocative and saturnine landscapes speckled with abandoned villages and dilapidated monasteries, captivating audiences. All-girl boarding schools run by authoritarian headmistresses. Not to mention all the flesh-ripping, gore, and nudity you </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.0719986pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">could handle! Spanish horror films offered something unique and exotic, creating a legacy that would forever cement Spain in the annals of horror history. The Spanish horror boom didn’t truly begin until the late 1960s, but at the beginning of the decade, Spanish Cinema was ripe for change, and the groundwork for horror was laid. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36.276pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7bGAT-2tmQn35mC8J1tKU-YU7PGDP_3Y391Ww_Uu5qQudQ-cSJeM_KNNTSe95KZqK3MgKvDG-vQx3RXoznmff32F5vCD1RCpEA97gkssyjQyfw-wzQTniUS-dIoySP87ZuaEtE92zQaDP8l3fxHT_9enI9McJ61Xu4RTKx7kgpJLZuNFWDYj7lvkyBQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3986" data-original-width="2834" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj7bGAT-2tmQn35mC8J1tKU-YU7PGDP_3Y391Ww_Uu5qQudQ-cSJeM_KNNTSe95KZqK3MgKvDG-vQx3RXoznmff32F5vCD1RCpEA97gkssyjQyfw-wzQTniUS-dIoySP87ZuaEtE92zQaDP8l3fxHT_9enI9McJ61Xu4RTKx7kgpJLZuNFWDYj7lvkyBQ" width="171" /></span></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36.276pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36.276pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> The early 1960s brought major changes for Spanish Cinema. Originally, Spanish films were made for domestic consumption, and for Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Spanish companies were the only financers, and only Spanish actors and actresses were used. Additionally, there was little-to-no distribution outside Spain, so countries across Europe were never exposed to these films. This meant that very particular films were made for the intended audience, which mainly were comedies and dramas. In 1962, the Francoist government wanted to make serious financial changes to Spanish Cinema and wanted to compete with European New Wave Cinema. This was also prompted by contemporary foreign films being featured more frequently at Spanish theatres. These films would expose Spanish filmmakers to different ways of filming cinema. Some Spanish films did receive acclaim outside Spain, making the government aware of the positives that can come from distributing more films beyond its borders. This also meant collaborating with other European countries and making co-productions. This promotion of what was called </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36.276pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nuevo Cine Español </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 36.276pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(New Spanish Cinema) (NCE for short) was not without its flaws, however, and unfortunately, numerous caveats came with it. By 1968, the new production system was quite costly, and led to delayed payments of government subsidies, causing the NCE to be an economic failure. One of the only film-types to survive this crash was the horror genre, and directors found ways to continue putting them out while working around heavy restrictions. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgskQgoi7XtE3PzycaqhXFjLA9aSHpUIIhnVmymGWTJhNGYAID6uRMZjqijMhNEW1upoG0ctWLxh4fhlRjTTkj7za3NM5asccSDJEBo0KILmp0HWvrbIU0vU1IN-tOiAGdes8g-mCCnBOwK6InR5IxeeXbx0FM0HfisD3OGuHp2XlukGL7IwebS6AQdww" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="5000" data-original-width="3524" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgskQgoi7XtE3PzycaqhXFjLA9aSHpUIIhnVmymGWTJhNGYAID6uRMZjqijMhNEW1upoG0ctWLxh4fhlRjTTkj7za3NM5asccSDJEBo0KILmp0HWvrbIU0vU1IN-tOiAGdes8g-mCCnBOwK6InR5IxeeXbx0FM0HfisD3OGuHp2XlukGL7IwebS6AQdww" width="169" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 3.31427pt; margin-top: 16.5147pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span><span><span> </span><span> </span> </span></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Rigid censorship rules were enforced, determining what was acceptable to be made as a film. Scripts had to be officially examined, and anything that went against the ideologies and values of the regime (political, social, sexual, and cultural) had to be removed. Directors were subjected to a plethora of re-edits (this would sometimes include reshoots) if they wanted their films to appear on the screen. This forced many directors to develop strategies to work around the limitations set upon them. The origins of Spanish horror were BORN from these constraints, as evidenced in what is widely regarded as the earliest Spanish horror film, Jess Franco’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Awful Dr. Orlof</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Released in 1962, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Awful Dr. Orlof </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was vastly different from what Spanish audiences were accustomed to viewing; it deviated from the normal conventions and ideals of Spanish filmmaking, subverting gender roles and combining gothic horror with detective tropes. It featured darkly-lit streets and shadows at every possible corner, hiding the horrific and unknown! Franco took the mad scientist genre and made it his own, creating something truly bizarre and ghastly! It was a co-production between Spain and France, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and while it was shot in Madrid, Franco set the story in France, because, according to the regime, evil could never exist in Spain. This is a tactic that other directors would utilize in their films, like Pedro L. Ramirez’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">School of Death </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1975), set in Victorian London, or Miguel Madrid’s </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Killer of Dolls </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974), set in France. To pass the rules of the censorship board, Paul Naschy’s famous werewolf, Waldemar Daninsky, came from Poland, because the regime said there were no werewolves and lycanthropy in Spain, as they went against Catholic doctrine. Other Spanish directors decided to make some of their films outside of Spain. José Luis Madrid filmed </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Horrible Sexy Vampire </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1971) in Germany. Jess Franco shot multiple films in different countries. José Ramón Larraz shot some of his films in the U.K., such as </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Symptoms </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974) and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Vampyres </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1974). Directors would also use foreign actors like Jack Taylor, Wal Davis, or Howard Vern, or even using Spanish actors who hardly worked outside the genre, and their voices dubbed so the average viewer couldn’t identify them. Double versions of films also had to be made, one for domestic viewing, and one for international viewing. Spanish audiences would get the edited version that would have nudity edited out, while international audiences would get the fully unedited versions (</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Awful Dr. Orlof </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 0.384003pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is an example of this). The first half of the 1960s didn’t see too many horror releases, but the seeds were planted, and the second half would experience an enormous boom! </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin: 0pt 0.593933pt 0pt 0.587997pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.384003pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin: 0pt 0.593933pt 0pt 0.587997pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.384003pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQvYuj-iUUjrezHc7WNNkxVWQmT8NTGcDy9SFd04pt4ZnLusB0X1sz5wcAXwAKfrXZcankd2iIbuep-QN-NlkdBK1OLQyBlrpxBWw1fuY0mK3vbV-Dt-KT1NUBC3Ch-MZPcLt8hxWkJXGPoyH4iA_1jvfllu5KOpoSOli5M0neyDwOFsujmcuLmPrTPw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="304" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQvYuj-iUUjrezHc7WNNkxVWQmT8NTGcDy9SFd04pt4ZnLusB0X1sz5wcAXwAKfrXZcankd2iIbuep-QN-NlkdBK1OLQyBlrpxBWw1fuY0mK3vbV-Dt-KT1NUBC3Ch-MZPcLt8hxWkJXGPoyH4iA_1jvfllu5KOpoSOli5M0neyDwOFsujmcuLmPrTPw" width="162" /></span></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin: 0pt 0.593933pt 0pt 0.587997pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.384003pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.32186; margin: 0pt 0.593933pt 0pt 0.587997pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.384003pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> <span> </span>1966 saw the release of the television series </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Historias para no dormir </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Tales to Keep You Awake), from Uruguayan-born Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. Similar to series like </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Outer Limits </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Twilight Zone</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, Serrador’s episodic show adapted stories from writers like Ray Bradbury, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, and many others! From ‘66 to ‘68, he sent shockwaves throughout Spain! The release of his first horror film, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">La Residencia </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-indent: 37.272pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(1969) is what catapulted the horror genre in Spain. It was the first commercial horror film to come out of Spain, intentionally made to break through the international market. It also was the first Spanish film produced with English dialogue. Even more, it’s one of the earliest examples of a proto-slasher! It featured both English and Spanish actors/actresses and was a box office hit. It was the highest-grossing film in Spain at the time. The film would pave the way for a multitude of horror films over the following years. Directors like Amando de Ossorio, Pedro Olea, Jorge Grau, Eloy de la Iglesia, Raúl Artigot, and others would leave their mark on Spanish horror. Some of these filmmakers put out multiple films, while others only one or two. Over the following months, we will take a deeper look into these directors and their films, exploring their impact on the genre, and discussing the themes and symbolism, along with the socio-cultural and political commentary found in those films. Stay tuned!</span></span></p><div><span face="Arial,sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-9895400963942271842024-02-05T01:07:00.000-05:002024-02-05T01:07:50.279-05:00The Somnambulist<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRNHwY6WtGycKEAAA1AjHN-EmAsAgLwGXs6JWHenmtpOYsw1ojaDXx7nqyWs2VnTL5yBzt8bMWFNiGu9UjqO_Y3aJtKWRG0wvqu4zOWLNNNO1xHFtIdx4mGNIUpFQwh0Bq_8qoQuKycsfUiQIV2beQujI8Q_VebaWTWKlOiEmTPmxGHBPTDxCtvzG5Iw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1199" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRNHwY6WtGycKEAAA1AjHN-EmAsAgLwGXs6JWHenmtpOYsw1ojaDXx7nqyWs2VnTL5yBzt8bMWFNiGu9UjqO_Y3aJtKWRG0wvqu4zOWLNNNO1xHFtIdx4mGNIUpFQwh0Bq_8qoQuKycsfUiQIV2beQujI8Q_VebaWTWKlOiEmTPmxGHBPTDxCtvzG5Iw" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Do you know who Caligari is? You hear the name in the ether. Images of a pale face blankly staring into the night come to you in your deep slumber. You find yourself in a cityscape of crooked angles and wrong shadows. An obsession you have had since childhood. You find these cinematic visions are the only things that represent your life. You can only find meaning, find comfort, in these nighttime visions. You are up late. After a long day at work, you are trying to zone out and watch something. You watch Jason Voorhees slaughtering teenagers at the whim of his murderous mother. A dead mother who still speaks to him. A blank stare coming from his mask he does as his mother wills. You watch Max Renn, programmed and reprogrammed, a subconscious agent for other powers' insidious agenda. Max’s abdominal vagina opening for whoever wants to control him. He fights against it, but he does keep finding himself open and receptive does he not? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhg0kIJuB3T1atjGhHAafMWlydFk4guH9ePUTZbu33nPE4BYhnufHDtdsVRcL8ZwixynCzKwVkk-5Im3MTuH8r6N465XnJIEZBoh4PjFP8138z-y-_2Xn_4EgsxnA8Wc9OfRllLZA25UElvEtp92N0qdw056yZNuaudhrNEuUt_WKfhv6LYww47na4_gw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="882" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhg0kIJuB3T1atjGhHAafMWlydFk4guH9ePUTZbu33nPE4BYhnufHDtdsVRcL8ZwixynCzKwVkk-5Im3MTuH8r6N465XnJIEZBoh4PjFP8138z-y-_2Xn_4EgsxnA8Wc9OfRllLZA25UElvEtp92N0qdw056yZNuaudhrNEuUt_WKfhv6LYww47na4_gw" width="240" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The puppets seethe. The moonlight reflects in their blank eyes. We are all driven by unknown motivations. Hardwired by forces unseen and unknowable. We come into this story halfway through and don’t understand the part we play. But play it we still do. We see the shadow of Caligari in our sexual attractions and our self-destructive behaviors. Like Ceaser, we walk through this life disoriented and confused. Driven by a master who whispers we can not fully understand. We find ourselves mute, unable to express our panic and our fear at the life we are forced to live, the strange passions and desires that consume us. We want to be taken over. Is this the secret voice of art? Art isn't so innocent, it is an invasive thing, insidious. To fill us up, take us over, as empty vessels with someone else's dreams. We don't want to have to live. We want the burden of living in our flesh cages to be lifted, for our lives to be taken over by our most secret and obsessive dreams. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEioMshBpo7VqM9B765AkzwJorfz5PTayiqNCxt9FnG7m7wNtdxF63r7_QOejKrJRtk8f3-kDWrzg0Eq6U-OVNxC6_kWHXzCUnk70UCGxJOxpr4f8kVSckbfawZ3jcBTopmNke_2XiWUF0pmx_FCJ2582VAe2K9lTRM_3DQ4MMIDLURLUPOQM4bW-pMqOw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="297" data-original-width="300" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEioMshBpo7VqM9B765AkzwJorfz5PTayiqNCxt9FnG7m7wNtdxF63r7_QOejKrJRtk8f3-kDWrzg0Eq6U-OVNxC6_kWHXzCUnk70UCGxJOxpr4f8kVSckbfawZ3jcBTopmNke_2XiWUF0pmx_FCJ2582VAe2K9lTRM_3DQ4MMIDLURLUPOQM4bW-pMqOw" width="242" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Kafka wrote about sons turned into bugs, so alienated from themselves they don't even know what species they are. But they do know that they are late for work and they don't want to let their family down. Bellmer made puppets that were unliving victims of his sexual appetites, made to be shaped and molded into whatever form he desired. Ligotti wrote of puppets becoming self-aware, the ultimate horror. All three celebrated the nightmares that infected and corrupted them. The horror genre whispers its secrets to us and few can understand what it is saying. The giving up of control and being submerged in someone else's nightmares, forever. Maybe our deepest secret desire is to be acted upon, to be manipulated and used, a puppet who comes to love their strings. To be lulled, to be drugged, to be mindwashed and controlled. To give in to forces more powerful than us. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaPmmaXkuXoip6yqREmUq0goS1p3csyA8TahAp2ZonWtYB-tdMltlQ6av1M46tUAeylfRAq82J9aBuJuNIEFLSGarlYXW7-wa3uxhmz8GAqYCogKqtPo3Cq80HmgyoDH1K8LhDQW3xHhTqd_dhkrjK_zVHAJvLnyuXynf_Na6ZLyLciwe-kS_-rIitgw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaPmmaXkuXoip6yqREmUq0goS1p3csyA8TahAp2ZonWtYB-tdMltlQ6av1M46tUAeylfRAq82J9aBuJuNIEFLSGarlYXW7-wa3uxhmz8GAqYCogKqtPo3Cq80HmgyoDH1K8LhDQW3xHhTqd_dhkrjK_zVHAJvLnyuXynf_Na6ZLyLciwe-kS_-rIitgw" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We, some of us, probably more than would be willing to admit, are Ceaser looking for their Caligari, Master of Nightmare. We hand over our puppet strings, our backs bent and our feet heavy. We want to fall into, to drown, in delicious nightmare. We watch Jason Vorhees stalk in the dark woods, an insane unalive thing. We watch Max Renn be penetrated over and over, flesh malleable and giving. We lose ourselves in these visions. The flickering screen whispering to our secret selves. You want this. You want this. You want this. And do we keep going back for ever fresh ever new nightmares, don’t we?</span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-51186313189341040532023-12-25T23:55:00.000-05:002023-12-25T23:55:18.051-05:00Review: Beau is Afraid.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMLABVvLN7tccUS3xdyKsZ4lNMkqvpKJdEzLBGI7zZPloNWxUsw_KUyS8lZ5Y7nUjfAXOJaj1k-8F5Sj1I75RSTwEJfupCLGDtnEXCEYK_Cz0_Nwa8-suKAwr-Y3cLTJWiAKrxj30Ad4UGFG9pHK3LorDVPCMppZ5mDj6UZPDdox2Ty0IstRJ1b3kvKQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="370" data-original-width="250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMLABVvLN7tccUS3xdyKsZ4lNMkqvpKJdEzLBGI7zZPloNWxUsw_KUyS8lZ5Y7nUjfAXOJaj1k-8F5Sj1I75RSTwEJfupCLGDtnEXCEYK_Cz0_Nwa8-suKAwr-Y3cLTJWiAKrxj30Ad4UGFG9pHK3LorDVPCMppZ5mDj6UZPDdox2Ty0IstRJ1b3kvKQ=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4cdf71ab-7fff-058e-ad44-4d20699405cb"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ari Aster made a huge splash in cinema with two of the greatest horror films made in the last fifteen years. Hereditary and Midsommar. Both are brilliant films that mix classic horror tropes with art-house style. Now we come to his third film, a film that seems to be his more experimental, maybe more daring project to date. Beau is Afraid. The film starts off interesting, its atmospheres of paranoia and creeping violence laced through the narrative. But the film does not seem to be interested in restraint, and Beau is Afraid becomes too abstract and occasionally the worst sin of all… just boring. The film tries to come off as daringly transgressive with its meta-narrative asides and random explosions of cruelty. But neither really hit the viewer, the film just has no punch. The viewer starts the film with goodwill, wanting to see where the director goes, but the journey just isn't worth the voyage. One of the strengths of his previous films is that they were anchored by using the basic framework of classic horror genre tropes which allowed him to play and expand on the themes of the horror film, in Beau is Afraid the film has no real depth and kind of gets lost in its own pretensions. The unease of the film is diluted by the winks and nods the film makes to the audience. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Beau is Afraid is Ari Aster saying, look how awful life can be, what if all your paranoid thoughts were real? But it is all played as farce and an elbow to the ribs. There is no anger, no resentment, no actual emotions ever enter into it. The film would have been much better served by a more realistic tone. Compare this film to the completely unpredictable end of Enemy or the mindfuckery of The Tenant. Both films have a realistic tone where surrealism and horror lurk around the edges of the film. The acting in phenomenal. But anytime the film seems about to go somewhere challenging and interesting, it just falls back on its own wankery. It’s like the film does not know if it wants to be a horror film in the style of Polanski or Lynch, or some parody slash social commentary like Brazil or Mother!. While I do feel that the film was a brave direction for the director to go, the film itself doesn't have the courage of its own convictions. The oh-so-shocking monster in the attic, because of course there is a monster, at the end is shown to an audience tired of the abstraction of this three-hour film and the monster just lands to no effect. Beau is Afraid i will give credit for its experimental style and for its attempt at broadening of what genre films can do, but it just doesn't work. Not a horrible film just a film that is not effective. With this out of his system let's see what Ari Aster has in store for us next. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-50370204090731948572023-11-30T02:11:00.003-05:002023-11-30T02:11:59.257-05:00Review: Messiah of Evil <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCOStuwA52SqxY1-YB9Ui8c_HW_2iorVqaULtmU6xv5ELWTVuBXGlZq7Fcrrr-Olp_KxhabjxEwYaX8URsP-lifI_LNedErPjxa0ddIiTEtPOhvrzOLdrIMFv8rDnuOZCCxF3cUGXtlO9-BGdDpM8VDTxb8w2OcsSfjxd2iXDKvGNALGjb1lf1LkjoUA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1527" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCOStuwA52SqxY1-YB9Ui8c_HW_2iorVqaULtmU6xv5ELWTVuBXGlZq7Fcrrr-Olp_KxhabjxEwYaX8URsP-lifI_LNedErPjxa0ddIiTEtPOhvrzOLdrIMFv8rDnuOZCCxF3cUGXtlO9-BGdDpM8VDTxb8w2OcsSfjxd2iXDKvGNALGjb1lf1LkjoUA=w255-h320" width="255" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A new Blu-Ray of the wonderfully obscure and strange 1970s horror film Messiah of Evil recently dropped and I will never stop being a huge champion of this gem. This new transfer is a cult horror fan's dream. After having first experienced this film, having never heard of it or had any idea what it was, on one of those dvds with 20 badly transferred films on it, where all the films seem like they were recovered from a decade spent at the bottom of a swamp, seeing this film restored and in high definition is actually mind-blowing. The Bava/Argento influence is even more apparent, the hyperreal colors deep and clear. The hypnotic synth soundtrack hovers over everything, the restoration of the audio tracks is nothing short of amazing. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Messiah of Evil, for my money, is an absolute top-five 70’s horror film. It’s a truly liminal film. Strange areas of modern life not often explored in the horror film provide the background of Messiah of Evil.. Isolated gas stations lit by fluorescent lights lost in huge oceans of darkness. The unnerving quiet of empty grocery stores. Streets empty and full of closed stores. I think the only film from that era that can compete with the strange midnight atmospherics of Messiah of Evil may be Phantasm. Both films are completely devoted to their surrealist logic and lack of explanation. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Messiah of Evil is like a nightmare of horror films. Messiah of Evil is every half-remembered horror film you caught late at night and passed out halfway through. The next day when you think of the film, you can not figure out what was the actual film and what was your dream of the film That is Messiah of Evil. It is like something out of John Carpenter’s The Thing, it assimilates the best parts of other horror films and stories and makes something new and strange out of them. It is a precursor to Dawn of the Dead and its tying of capitalism to undead flesh eaters. It pays homage to H.P. Lovecraft and his cured seaside towns and protagonists who start to lose their grip on reality. The fog and gothic atmosphere of Dark Shadows is also here. The demonic possession as a virus or infection from Evil Dead runs through this film. A subplot recalls the southern gothic of Night of the Hunter. The hysteric female survivor of some nightmare recalls Shock Waves and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2. Somehow it references the horror genre yet feels so fresh and innovative. Messiah of Evil is an absolute classic of the horror genre and the new Blu-Ray from Radience Films is a must-buy. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-92094798626539571942023-10-31T17:22:00.000-04:002023-10-31T17:22:01.706-04:00A Pleasing Terror: Unease and the Ghost Tale<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNPG9qr1hwtcneTXGMcqqS-cKOSxlqeYal5SiQd-v3PG8mXe-weAln6MqOkDUENEy_Kp3_KKgE_2htE7HEBuxetvrYZtBjHT1migjW5lz-iork-cCKoNRjZqveahBrx-PgBb2aNxzNVU2yjip14wwMcN_NLMvqwWzDf7tlOcIrUQiLZUAtHj8g8MqzPw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNPG9qr1hwtcneTXGMcqqS-cKOSxlqeYal5SiQd-v3PG8mXe-weAln6MqOkDUENEy_Kp3_KKgE_2htE7HEBuxetvrYZtBjHT1migjW5lz-iork-cCKoNRjZqveahBrx-PgBb2aNxzNVU2yjip14wwMcN_NLMvqwWzDf7tlOcIrUQiLZUAtHj8g8MqzPw" width="160" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">What is it that creeps in the night? The shadow, the strange sound in the distance? The feeling of unease, of terror tingling up your spine? What is it that provokes these feelings in us? And why do some of us find this sensation so appealing? The slow creeping shadow, you look away, but you know in the back of your mind if you look back, it will still be there. The thing that should not be there, the uncanny, the abject. Ghosts and phantoms exist in candlelight and in our modern technology. In our mythologies, in our books, and in our films they lurk. Thanks to writers like M.R. James, Fritz Leiber, Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson, and Ramsey Campbell, the literary ghost story has grown and evolved, but it is also a form as old as literature. In films like The Haunting, The Innocents, Kairo, and The Others, the art form of the ghost story has chilled audiences, either in dark movie theaters or late at night on the television, for over a century. But what is this art of unease?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGGMksd7HhcrBzkeYAQHgp2uPYnQc-xrFxZ_jeoRoag932qxWal-np18A_1NpnzMYpogpiP4AnrRUznY-3GoZbbQkQya0e4f37kNT8EdAqE36853vhroP2rQYAJCqzgh7287iDy7TjmRye5Rpt2g3bYwRf-V5_66yKrJpcqIkIF5NQKTIhZqAIXhjBxg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1288" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGGMksd7HhcrBzkeYAQHgp2uPYnQc-xrFxZ_jeoRoag932qxWal-np18A_1NpnzMYpogpiP4AnrRUznY-3GoZbbQkQya0e4f37kNT8EdAqE36853vhroP2rQYAJCqzgh7287iDy7TjmRye5Rpt2g3bYwRf-V5_66yKrJpcqIkIF5NQKTIhZqAIXhjBxg" width="193" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We all have experienced a fear of the unknown, a fear of what may lurk in the shadows. And maybe the ghost story says, what if what you fear… actually is real? What if a monster actually is hiding in the corner, or that sound was some inhuman thing? What if the worst-case scenario was not only real but worse than you thought? We go through our lives assuming things are safe and sane, but in the shadowy parts of the world, something nightmarish uncoils in the dark. Why does it hide? Why does it stay unseen, rarely making its presence felt? Maybe it's the tease, the slow revealing of itself that it cherishes? I think, deep down, we are aware of our tenuous place in existence. We live in a fathomless void. Surrounded by eons of death. Yet we try to live our lives to the best of our ability. Go to work. Enjoy a delicious dinner. Find love. But in the background, the darkness still lurks. I think the creepy and the eerie in horror serve as a reminder of something we repress. That nightmare is where we come from and from where we are damned to return. Is the darkness sentient? Were we created from its abyssal womb? We shamble in the eternal night, our rotting flesh carrying us under a sky of limitless nothingness. A universe of ghosts and absences. We are the dead. We are the ghosts of the universe. We haunt ourselves. Doppelgangers, specters, strange sounds in the night. Maybe these are all reflections. We see ourselves in the nothingness of the night sky. Under the skin hides a corpse. And sometimes, we can enjoy the deliciousness of our damnation. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-80010515007703530182023-09-21T23:40:00.000-04:002023-09-21T23:40:46.440-04:00A list: My thirteen favorite works of fiction. <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here is a list of what I would name as my top thirteen favorite books of fiction. Novels and short story collections, in no particular order. I have tried to stay away from large best-of collections, I like a more minimalist form of book editing. Shorter books with all meat and no filler. With every list like this must come the disclaimer… this is my list for today, tomorrow the list may be completely different. The immeasurable pleasure these books, among others, have given me and my existence on this earth is something I will always cherish. I hope like-minded people will find similar pleasure in these selections and also maybe encouragement to form their own lists. So for both new readers and readers already in love, I dedicate this to you. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuyoq9OY_0ndz_CjgrBpsvHeqC16fOHIZNEdm4WzjNJKI4tQbjhy3VieKReF6LTJMvhRs3TFfErS254_roT5xW48NLq59YKrG_rnsk_nfKwtZRENm5kJD051LdE2RVEW094lF3RuG8WQPZETGlV-v_fd35M37LGz_lw_U29kMhPYt_HDVFIyfjSlY4PQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="258" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuyoq9OY_0ndz_CjgrBpsvHeqC16fOHIZNEdm4WzjNJKI4tQbjhy3VieKReF6LTJMvhRs3TFfErS254_roT5xW48NLq59YKrG_rnsk_nfKwtZRENm5kJD051LdE2RVEW094lF3RuG8WQPZETGlV-v_fd35M37LGz_lw_U29kMhPYt_HDVFIyfjSlY4PQ" width="158" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Cold Print/Ramsey Campbell. I just love the whole package of this book. The amazing cover. The gorgeous interior illustrations from J.K. Potter. The first half with a young Campbell playing in the Lovecraft mythos is fun, but certainly not his best work. But then we get to the second half of this collection and Campbell just goes off. I can’t think of a four-story stretch in any collection that can compete with these: Cold Print, Before the Storm, The Faces at Pine Dunes, and The Tugging. Apocalyptic, perverse, and beautifully written. Campbell may be one the greatest writers the horror genre has ever produced. A master of both the whispered, creeping tale and the mind-bendingly horrific. His works can produce a real vertigo in the reader, an actual unease after finishing one of his tales. There are a couple other Campbell collections that could have taken this spot: Demons by Daylight, The Height of the Scream, and Scared Stiff being my other favorites. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRGd-uzWyHc3W9C_hzkeLlFiTRKS7IBr4YcbwQ7flARnqeQZAmvVCgZgqYkXAn4I8zDZPIRA71oDwE0uR9xoUunsLOYWFPKC1Xsrhgt8Nc35R_T_2GYi5ebubQ7zuNMvGNq7xelX-u5D_mRR9fesoMDxkgDf1J-A67F0eDLHnCQXQoMLhPL-ZRfzDyTg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="669" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRGd-uzWyHc3W9C_hzkeLlFiTRKS7IBr4YcbwQ7flARnqeQZAmvVCgZgqYkXAn4I8zDZPIRA71oDwE0uR9xoUunsLOYWFPKC1Xsrhgt8Nc35R_T_2GYi5ebubQ7zuNMvGNq7xelX-u5D_mRR9fesoMDxkgDf1J-A67F0eDLHnCQXQoMLhPL-ZRfzDyTg" width="161" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Teatro Grottesco/Thomas Ligotti. For my money, this just may be the most brilliant collection of horror fiction ever printed. There is a certain air of sinister delirium that hangs over this book sitting on the bookshelf. A collection of stories that can only be characterized as malignant and bleak. From the abstract horrors of The Red Tower, the strange almost diseased folk horror of In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land, the meta nightmare of The Bungalow House, to the body horror of Severini, if ever a book earned the right to be called a collection of nightmares, this is the one. I would also include that Ligotti’s collection Grimscribe was close to taking this spot. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHH_aQ00oBP0v5yUDqtRIs6lmBYOxnTuTi8mAVPAR_CkNb2n7z41rboWdg4p5PDwv1X5zOTngOtxVPbFep0LdpcZuGRxfEf6UGNIsFHk47I7WZYOphvFRPhC2npSdgWn8rVi6dekXrNUHlFqm2qtV-subR-7VX3DdFf9Kgb6LU1jKGT2m0EUOlzw7dxA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHH_aQ00oBP0v5yUDqtRIs6lmBYOxnTuTi8mAVPAR_CkNb2n7z41rboWdg4p5PDwv1X5zOTngOtxVPbFep0LdpcZuGRxfEf6UGNIsFHk47I7WZYOphvFRPhC2npSdgWn8rVi6dekXrNUHlFqm2qtV-subR-7VX3DdFf9Kgb6LU1jKGT2m0EUOlzw7dxA" width="154" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dark Entries/Robert Aickman. In terms of whispering horror, has anyone ever come close to Aickman? Most of the time, you finish a tale of his feeling completely unnerved, and you have literally no idea why. There are these dark undercurrents to his work hidden in the text, a background of strangeness only hinted at. Sometimes it's hard to even remember what you just read, like trying to find direction in a fog bank.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-McCzAprA8WL_9ZuwbihY0-7YEsk9idud9Z8cmqJX5Hr8p7T7NeUvMB8a7aK74yo-BLv6R6AJc8pE-hbXZcbF72vo6XGfrZJY4H0FbUrFnfii_uYWW4QtEHDUDPbFpkdTNhJ1J15lbLiIIeUVRZ3sA4xt8Mp3TxYAv5oObDPOLLOruyFS3h-D76Tv-g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-McCzAprA8WL_9ZuwbihY0-7YEsk9idud9Z8cmqJX5Hr8p7T7NeUvMB8a7aK74yo-BLv6R6AJc8pE-hbXZcbF72vo6XGfrZJY4H0FbUrFnfii_uYWW4QtEHDUDPbFpkdTNhJ1J15lbLiIIeUVRZ3sA4xt8Mp3TxYAv5oObDPOLLOruyFS3h-D76Tv-g" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Scarlet Nights/Juan Muntaner. A collection of the most exquisite erotica. Sometimes dark and disturbing, sometimes willingly transgressing taboos, sometimes playful and teasing. Each and every story is surprising and never what you think it's going to be. Lustful, decadent, and titillating. This collection really is the final word on erotica as a legitimate branch of literature. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5mQbNXdRvm1XxRToExRNLkvadqIE6eLtBiIM9BDG4YYdM9PO6J51S9OMdTlZ83lcKDfGrsse5i_K-PgusBSPq51ziKD40QqXJs1VBJvYWXwJZdyg8k9gAHp127Q831B_6JB4K_jiEJKRLQ8U2ZwHuLMOX58OPZ1anPscf4gMR7YpBY8HP_zM8WCLYUw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="641" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg5mQbNXdRvm1XxRToExRNLkvadqIE6eLtBiIM9BDG4YYdM9PO6J51S9OMdTlZ83lcKDfGrsse5i_K-PgusBSPq51ziKD40QqXJs1VBJvYWXwJZdyg8k9gAHp127Q831B_6JB4K_jiEJKRLQ8U2ZwHuLMOX58OPZ1anPscf4gMR7YpBY8HP_zM8WCLYUw" width="154" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Torture Garden/Octave Mirbeau. Mirbeau mixes the beautiful and the deadly in this intoxication in book form. The dark, the horrible, the worst parts of humanity he makes beautiful and desirable. The main seductress of the tale, Clara, is something out of myth, maybe a reincarnation of Lilith, or Kali? There is an aura around her of the other, like she just stepped out of a dream. The seductress that will lead you, willingly, to your demise. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6Yi1wlYJmHA96aKH1M45c91LLfMhlVAKwknpjwCaEUPn52A2VdJ-XSO_wpgPonfyupO7TmFvXXcvhKoaVBHx1Oq0RfD1pjrguzRw25QCrBiuRShFlVNE2WkvKyCwAeyH47dtC2Dt3rk5gxqQ_RELnnRrxq-wnoviLl03x95FQs-eXy75mjOeigfpbew" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="210" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6Yi1wlYJmHA96aKH1M45c91LLfMhlVAKwknpjwCaEUPn52A2VdJ-XSO_wpgPonfyupO7TmFvXXcvhKoaVBHx1Oq0RfD1pjrguzRw25QCrBiuRShFlVNE2WkvKyCwAeyH47dtC2Dt3rk5gxqQ_RELnnRrxq-wnoviLl03x95FQs-eXy75mjOeigfpbew" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tender is the Flesh/Agustina Bazterrica. A dystopian novel that holds nothing back. This book holds a mirror to our society and shows it for what it is, a dying, starving, desperate beast. Underneath the fake veneer that holds our society together, there is a serious rot, a corrupting force that is destroying us. The writing here is wonderfully crisp and poetic. Both a bleak nightmare of society and a poem to degradation. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGRkEb7JYMfwcehIkr3cBYZVgI_IBIS4dbPt5wEOQgk85LvKpaGGUkodouOT6-O5qjcvuJFKcAxgXu_Mid2LGWyfmGSE5ZI7aADySPgHUGOMKqG1YKLp8T5B5tX195CRzdeIK_EwEHPpYBBlxtIeOKDq1U0mhl6eqlM_0-4SxpBMes9p-_O_m8wbfXpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="642" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGRkEb7JYMfwcehIkr3cBYZVgI_IBIS4dbPt5wEOQgk85LvKpaGGUkodouOT6-O5qjcvuJFKcAxgXu_Mid2LGWyfmGSE5ZI7aADySPgHUGOMKqG1YKLp8T5B5tX195CRzdeIK_EwEHPpYBBlxtIeOKDq1U0mhl6eqlM_0-4SxpBMes9p-_O_m8wbfXpg" width="154" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart/Caitlin Kiernan. There has never been a writer that has combined the melancholy of desire, and the desire for the dark, like Kiernan has. Heartbreak, longing, and despair combine with a desire for the mysterious and the nebulous. Tales of soul-crushing otherness combine with the secret longing to be other than what one is. Kiernan at their best is writing the most beautiful prose being written today. I would add that Kiernan’s collection The Ammonite Violin also was a contender for this spot.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMDdPgpcICHDAb9sWBTANHR8F8hPgKThej8iuFcwYdMB00gWTjznIjciZB9DNu2ZMlM1L6lrR_vDY1UHitsvKX530yFI4Y-EEQ3XWD8wDSAFotI11xc2WYwOTxM7rVSVT-cPKLZyEvOgTk-j42W_AJ0lZQtncv6zwf7pJpiNeV0LRvyQiH-jyvhIGHyQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="257" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjMDdPgpcICHDAb9sWBTANHR8F8hPgKThej8iuFcwYdMB00gWTjznIjciZB9DNu2ZMlM1L6lrR_vDY1UHitsvKX530yFI4Y-EEQ3XWD8wDSAFotI11xc2WYwOTxM7rVSVT-cPKLZyEvOgTk-j42W_AJ0lZQtncv6zwf7pJpiNeV0LRvyQiH-jyvhIGHyQ" width="154" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Crash/J.G. Ballard. Science as pornography. Or pornography as science fiction. I don’t feel that any writer has come as close to anticipating the strange reality we live in as Ballard did in the 1970’s. The unreal is taking over the media landscape that has replaced ‘the real’. Our newfound freedom to explore our own obsessions ruthlessly. Crash is a bomb thrown into our discourse, shattering all pretenses. Car crashes and bodily injury as sources of sexual pleasure. The drive to death is secretly entangled in our notions of technological progress. This book is still way beyond acceptance. This book is both a seduction and a warning. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition also could have been in this spot.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVOga5-G_Yr6pgKhlSMxG_Txnl5Nunz1PIU8vgfIo9W9_Lu-YvSOld0obO3iJnRRI1MbQLKATjG4qXL7c4CQCTSKOPjOpKH9yD9HUhcs-ekmUbcTOdYfLawKDSih_TW8R0GP4k4OshCU6D3FEx5BKizqua_Sak02UfaAhcSmVZwlgvkH9SHY454TIghA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="650" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVOga5-G_Yr6pgKhlSMxG_Txnl5Nunz1PIU8vgfIo9W9_Lu-YvSOld0obO3iJnRRI1MbQLKATjG4qXL7c4CQCTSKOPjOpKH9yD9HUhcs-ekmUbcTOdYfLawKDSih_TW8R0GP4k4OshCU6D3FEx5BKizqua_Sak02UfaAhcSmVZwlgvkH9SHY454TIghA" width="156" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Earwig/Brian Catling. The book that forces me to like fantasy. A strange labyrinth of scenes and journeys. A delirium of secrets, doppelgangers, sinister presences, and innocence corrupted. Reading Earwig is like taking a long train journey into lands you never knew existed. Full of foreign sights and smells. All the while having no idea where the train is heading or what the final results of this journey will be. This is a book to get lost in. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPWSSpv-8HafflpH2hEb3ULLWC8_kc7uMk3EppBYEBovtt1tP0MNutnPw0WFmc5zYd1uJXVr2PGYSBx9PVHBaK_5xDIT9KYOA0nuDOqRDirGDGLtYj7yqCS1Kb9pCfuCGSn_yX62etywTNXrp39Dnn5drlmxoJSmBKiSElpsQiRmWu10eJ5BsfbtT5Mg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="590" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPWSSpv-8HafflpH2hEb3ULLWC8_kc7uMk3EppBYEBovtt1tP0MNutnPw0WFmc5zYd1uJXVr2PGYSBx9PVHBaK_5xDIT9KYOA0nuDOqRDirGDGLtYj7yqCS1Kb9pCfuCGSn_yX62etywTNXrp39Dnn5drlmxoJSmBKiSElpsQiRmWu10eJ5BsfbtT5Mg" width="142" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories/Arthur Machen. Maybe the grand poet of the horror genre? While protesting sin and darkness and the monstrous, was there any writer who did more to celebrate the darkness than Machen did with his stories? From the nightmare of sex that is The Great God Pan, the reality-smashing mystery of The Novel of the Black Seal, to the seductive enchantments of The White People, these works laid the groundwork for what was to soon become the horror genre. Horror as enchanting nightmare, dark prose that flirts with the sexual, horror as secrets and whispers in the night, all come fully formed in the work of Machen. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsSjsxKiok753GNzgdl3NnVPpymo55H7NeOMhHhsTMOv1X80oOUBoeJAqwgS6OjNC2wOuPksfoJTXzYRJ_autCPGhjzZ5CjHImdUXdkVA8iXo_GNEoM0tCaaEGPmbUDUW7MjjeZS8BQNXAF24YKHkvL4tLD4LRZQbTYnBXdW6ihmPrOU8OftLw9Hn2QA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsSjsxKiok753GNzgdl3NnVPpymo55H7NeOMhHhsTMOv1X80oOUBoeJAqwgS6OjNC2wOuPksfoJTXzYRJ_autCPGhjzZ5CjHImdUXdkVA8iXo_GNEoM0tCaaEGPmbUDUW7MjjeZS8BQNXAF24YKHkvL4tLD4LRZQbTYnBXdW6ihmPrOU8OftLw9Hn2QA" width="158" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fur/Liliane Giraudon. A tome of perverse fairy tales. Short and bizarre tales of strange encounters, with lovers who are unknowable and flesh that changes form. This is a book to be shared with lovers and one-night stands. This book feels like the author is telling you secrets, but they are weird and rooted in the author's lusts and dreams. A feverish book of desire and fantasy. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivUvlYmqedpCmx5k_DsokXm-_vWqzA_oW6Fl-siiXfuWEBJ2Yl8qpJgFDP3yP75i-nXBnZppNU7f_E-ISTB5MeXmpDASt4dOQm_Ci_LcPZdujFJ_ZeknNWXMREwXVvblAItiTvyu9Ek_81m7Me3zY168c_5V4VtShw50cS23k7I5-H6syxpGx340-QTg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="312" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivUvlYmqedpCmx5k_DsokXm-_vWqzA_oW6Fl-siiXfuWEBJ2Yl8qpJgFDP3yP75i-nXBnZppNU7f_E-ISTB5MeXmpDASt4dOQm_Ci_LcPZdujFJ_ZeknNWXMREwXVvblAItiTvyu9Ek_81m7Me3zY168c_5V4VtShw50cS23k7I5-H6syxpGx340-QTg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Wyrd and Other Derelictions/Adam Nevill. A book devoid of any characters. Or at least any recognizable human characters. A book of ruined landscapes. A literary tour of atrocity and collapse. These are tales of what happens when the worst possible scenario happens, when the monster at the end of the book wins, and what the world looks like afterward. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4c1cfece-7fff-5627-7768-aaa12b30fb68"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEim111e2_7yzh48hER3knW4fASCYviD1gpcdZjelMSHarwS0XfS8y6YoC3c3g1mih-5ayjm_L6VWek1XwOPZT1ZjDFVxrGrsucCnLhwsa_vpJOf-md1Da1fY0i1mR_odj4xpyIzPf8b1z_xh4XqpqPbT8dFNpYu_Bt99DZllkN03pZ6XQ8stH-pe-S39A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="220" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEim111e2_7yzh48hER3knW4fASCYviD1gpcdZjelMSHarwS0XfS8y6YoC3c3g1mih-5ayjm_L6VWek1XwOPZT1ZjDFVxrGrsucCnLhwsa_vpJOf-md1Da1fY0i1mR_odj4xpyIzPf8b1z_xh4XqpqPbT8dFNpYu_Bt99DZllkN03pZ6XQ8stH-pe-S39A" width="159" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Throat Sprockets/Tim Lucas. Finally, a book that understands the fetishism and obsession of genre. A love letter to strange films and midnight viewings. This is a book that understands how a film, a book, or art in general, can change your entire life. The way you view reality and the way you live your life can be altered by a chance viewing of a film in a rundown movie theater or on television late at night. Anyone who has obsessed over a cult film or an underread book will find a kindred spirit here. Erotic and obsessive, this book just absolutely unrepentantly throbs with passion and lust for cult films and secret vices. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-45489014215975414502023-08-31T23:07:00.000-04:002023-08-31T23:07:12.206-04:00Review: The Boogeyman<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh66-Mm6utKIrtDazP8EKKEJ-Html8YY7m6foGeEBuToJiMz-McBL39ZjdN5Ql3KR8_SZ-cv0ZbcQ3cQ4tQ3oMM_nBgvj7E9OhEJNQCbX0sv3VWZCD3IcheNF_TO4FIGp31OBgQwwSNh06HXsgv6uKENWBqElQY1ApnZdZL4EWlajQ9Nb4ZmSob-awZag" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1744" data-original-width="1515" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh66-Mm6utKIrtDazP8EKKEJ-Html8YY7m6foGeEBuToJiMz-McBL39ZjdN5Ql3KR8_SZ-cv0ZbcQ3cQ4tQ3oMM_nBgvj7E9OhEJNQCbX0sv3VWZCD3IcheNF_TO4FIGp31OBgQwwSNh06HXsgv6uKENWBqElQY1ApnZdZL4EWlajQ9Nb4ZmSob-awZag=w278-h320" width="278" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ulli Lommel’s 1980 cult horror film The Boogeyman is the kind of film you see mentioned here and there, but never really see any reason to check it out. It just kind of lives on the periphery of cult horror fandom. Not really famous in slasher film circles and not really well regarded as a supernatural horror film, it has yet to really make a name for itself. Sitting around the house I saw that it was available on streaming services and decided to give it a go. And let me tell you, after about five minutes into the film I was hooked. I am not sure if The Boogeyman is the best worst movie or the worst best movie, but I loved it. An insane brew of haunted house scares, possession, slasher killings, and very very very strange humor. The Boogeyman is ripe for rediscovery for anyone who loves that sort of 1970’s early 1980’s low-budget horror vibe. This film precedes in this kind of narcotic haze, everything is just a little off-kilter. The acting is subtlety strange, kind of like the cast is working through the film in a state of hypnosis. I would say Kubrick's The Shining drew influence from this film, and its underlying uncanniness if they hadn”t been released in the same year. And there is this strain of meta-comedy in The Boogeyman that parodies and comments on slasher film tropes that show yet again how non-revolutionary Craven’s film Scream really was. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhchq_qKo8OcD31LH9UnYnqt-Ej0ksZfIQbkOP1HGt_kR_CM0fx5PJ8hfx7ZotSLEnXmiPB-arlSEPaPnpeQ8srrA9KtfT3L3Kd6JRk9q_aVaIdUZvATq86Detw3gn_txgDsWK6XeLebWCMNGRDTR2nlrC0SnyascdPYhToXs9PfefRzEZ2gC2F0x1cvQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="640" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhchq_qKo8OcD31LH9UnYnqt-Ej0ksZfIQbkOP1HGt_kR_CM0fx5PJ8hfx7ZotSLEnXmiPB-arlSEPaPnpeQ8srrA9KtfT3L3Kd6JRk9q_aVaIdUZvATq86Detw3gn_txgDsWK6XeLebWCMNGRDTR2nlrC0SnyascdPYhToXs9PfefRzEZ2gC2F0x1cvQ" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-bcc814c9-7fff-42ea-9de1-52c453fb7cda"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This film deserves to be mentioned in the same category as Messiah of Evil, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Lemora: A Childs Tale of the Supernatural, The Child, and Phantasm. The non-sequitur hilarious non-comedy and the icy chill of the somniloquist actors going through the scenes make this such an unpredictable viewing experience. How this film slipped under my radar for so long is beyond me. Combining the last of the 70’s weird esthetics with the bizarre meta-camp of the 80’s, this film is both a wonderful accumulation of those films and a singular experience in its own right. Any self-respecting fan of cult horror needs to add this one to their collection. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRJjJpJutQkAG6TLYQOYl7uCbcrs3O9prxgxBWcOpf7WO14oKMNXfDqplT0jWUJdQ1gA15fKkoLVUJVFlHiRhdkPsoS0eCjq6bvuNOr84gOqqyAQSmBwNaT0MkergMwcWuVAHVKklQVXWAG4aw6Bno0YrmZDaOL5kYxrisghgywH7_vaesU4zPaWyUpA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="640" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRJjJpJutQkAG6TLYQOYl7uCbcrs3O9prxgxBWcOpf7WO14oKMNXfDqplT0jWUJdQ1gA15fKkoLVUJVFlHiRhdkPsoS0eCjq6bvuNOr84gOqqyAQSmBwNaT0MkergMwcWuVAHVKklQVXWAG4aw6Bno0YrmZDaOL5kYxrisghgywH7_vaesU4zPaWyUpA" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-561987053983424482023-08-18T00:39:00.001-04:002023-08-18T00:39:44.278-04:00Review: New Religon<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWw44ToU3vT29YlOqbANt-TSGtmhH762UjL9E_sSwrckMMsJpT-GymvGdSVP1xM-bCHKQm37dO8zdovAEY2qaO92N8GPUc6PlK5YztyNJhTFzHiaTKlHiG05hPEL5VtalJzb3EeQ4IavAczaRPpiL-eboLlXMG3D9DmvHbGYhHVdzGJKmRq6-U1LxxBQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1399" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWw44ToU3vT29YlOqbANt-TSGtmhH762UjL9E_sSwrckMMsJpT-GymvGdSVP1xM-bCHKQm37dO8zdovAEY2qaO92N8GPUc6PlK5YztyNJhTFzHiaTKlHiG05hPEL5VtalJzb3EeQ4IavAczaRPpiL-eboLlXMG3D9DmvHbGYhHVdzGJKmRq6-U1LxxBQ=w287-h400" width="287" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A strange electronic voice. A missing girl. Chaos erupting in the streets. Metamorphosis. A man who wants to be a moth, tells you what you want to hear. Random violence spreads. After the disappearance of her daughter a grieving mother starts working at an escort agency. A girl she works with goes on a killing spree and is killed in the process. Then she gets that girl’s client, the client she was with last before she went on her rampage. He is a strange man, cancer ravaging his vocal cords so he uses an electronic voice box. He is obsessed with the metamorphoses of moths. He is a photographer of body parts. He also seems to be a harbinger of doom. Those he interacts with and studies change, becoming passively violent, like murderous somnambulists. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-02a653d7-7fff-ff2f-cee5-1c24aa945d43"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">New Religion, a new Japanese film directed by Keishi Kondo, is draped in the abstraction of Under the Skin and the creeping dread of Kairo. It could be a sci-fi film, or just as easily a film about a supernatural entity. New Religion follows in the arthouse/elevated new wave of horror filmmaking. Quiet, abstract, mysterious. There are no answers, and a logic crafted in nightmare. A cold unnerving electronic score compliments the cold sterile cinematography. The themes of New Religion whisper themselves, intangible and elusive. The main antagonist is an unknown, his aims secret. What dark agenda is he following? What bizarre goal is he driving towards? Dive deep into the nebulous signals and hints of New Religion, and welcome a new important voice to modern horror filmmaking.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-37866092529047887102023-06-30T01:27:00.001-04:002023-08-18T00:49:13.697-04:00A Brief Reading List: The Different Eras of the Horror Genre<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span> </span><span> </span>A brief reading list for those interested in the history of the horror genre in literature. The time periods and the overviews are meant as a quick tutorial on the authors and the stories of that time. Nothing is set in stone and art and culture are fluid. So let this serve as a brief guided tour that is meant to inspire more deep dives into horror as literature.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-51ad0cf6-7fff-a6e7-af9f-fd6c8831a005"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWmstsQM0p6f7CfGqHAwddi0BOisKthYKENjWR4KvkJnDEv_ypxh3n5J95KY47qKmdTi2PPNsLkELhkaV49fcvJwZ2G3QnlrJJqDFaQPP6dopnEs3VmOJ2tJi8QZCc44jPl6wgqMRA36C8YIdN42EUrJtBQiuIuDwVIstTFw1XYZqF7LEA6FuI7p6pfg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="647" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWmstsQM0p6f7CfGqHAwddi0BOisKthYKENjWR4KvkJnDEv_ypxh3n5J95KY47qKmdTi2PPNsLkELhkaV49fcvJwZ2G3QnlrJJqDFaQPP6dopnEs3VmOJ2tJi8QZCc44jPl6wgqMRA36C8YIdN42EUrJtBQiuIuDwVIstTFw1XYZqF7LEA6FuI7p6pfg" width="155" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1890-1925 Decadence and Innovation</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This era of horror, in some circles seen as the golden age of horror literature, was the foundation of what would later be referred to as the horror genre. Horror has always been present in our literature. Since at least as early as the classic Greek plays to Shakespeare and Dante. But as a genre, it was not seen as a separate thing until around this time. Its roots are the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Gothic writers like Horace Walpole and Matthew Lewis, and also a huge influence came from the Decadent writers from France such as Jean Lorrain and Octave Mirbeau. From these writers was drawn a darker sensibility. A preference for decay and doom. A willingness to push boundaries and the reader's comfort level. This was new fertile ground. The area was clear for innovation, and the horror genre was not yet a thing, so these writers were free to explore the themes and ideas in their stories. A subtle shadow can also be felt in these works, with the coming of the first world war on the horizon. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Yellow Sign - Robert W. Chambers (1895)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Novel of the Black Seal - Arthur Machen (1895)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Spider - Hanns Heinz Ewers (1908)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Room in the Tower - E. F. Benson (1912)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fumes - Stefan Grabinski (1913)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiE1MHTeJRXBuXcCm4njQzNkiI4Zk1n_Xmo5PHXsBd8E6H_TwykJmBxUk7Qs_im6Jr-j1pk9PkCfASPsAJ1QivKzlYJxU5f5dQOwuDZsCkRjYe9LD_lXjdsSwBNgd1wHAntzpiBYFAk9RoTZyxLLwwf8FOxHvYx6guRsi_kHzgxk0B4rqJ0ImHCDV4rtA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="636" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiE1MHTeJRXBuXcCm4njQzNkiI4Zk1n_Xmo5PHXsBd8E6H_TwykJmBxUk7Qs_im6Jr-j1pk9PkCfASPsAJ1QivKzlYJxU5f5dQOwuDZsCkRjYe9LD_lXjdsSwBNgd1wHAntzpiBYFAk9RoTZyxLLwwf8FOxHvYx6guRsi_kHzgxk0B4rqJ0ImHCDV4rtA" width="153" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1925-1965 War and Darkness</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">These works came from readers who grew up with the “golden age” of horror. This is the era that shaped and defined horror as a literary genre. With the foundations of the genre firmly in place, these writers sought to refine and go further with what horror can do. Also over these works can be felt the fallout of two world wars. A pessimism and a breakdown of trust in the established morality of civilization lurk in the pages of these works. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Caterpillar - Edogawa Ranpo (1929)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Shadow over Innsmouth - H.P. Lovecraft (1936)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Skeleton - Ray Bradbury (1945)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bianca’s Hands - Theodore Sturgeon (1947)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Pillar of Salt - Shirley Jackson (1948)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikpskepLBSD77TwACxWzkXyhCv9413csyCR9am6PwoafOnvBHsHVIAn5-EFESwiP7UK8ZWPIwBsPcj_BakX_NlvcsA1GCqOcrDrsa-vyUxGU8Q-t3qISpGtOuCY5fWxzWRm5We5aTGpN14PKdpfg-Djh9zpbeIJRZHCPOZMpmRcz2irj11a9bFbvAPAw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="267" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikpskepLBSD77TwACxWzkXyhCv9413csyCR9am6PwoafOnvBHsHVIAn5-EFESwiP7UK8ZWPIwBsPcj_BakX_NlvcsA1GCqOcrDrsa-vyUxGU8Q-t3qISpGtOuCY5fWxzWRm5We5aTGpN14PKdpfg-Djh9zpbeIJRZHCPOZMpmRcz2irj11a9bFbvAPAw" width="167" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1965-2000 Genre and Change</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This era sees the horror genre become mainstream. With a well-set tradition of horror in literature and film, these writers grew up with horror as a viable literary choice. In these works, we see an exploration of a more liberal society. Sexual themes are discussed openly, and gender and race struggles are examined. Authors felt free to be more challenging with their work. Both subtlety and explicitness were taken to new levels. The oblique and the nebulous were championed alongside sexual themes and the rise of body horror. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Cellars - Ramsey Campbell (1967)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ravissante - Robert Aickman (1968)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Nighthawk - Dennis Etchison (1978)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Replacements - Lisa Tuttle (1992)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Bungalow House - Thomas Ligotti (1995)</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3gi-jpBZ4jqHRi0MAo0teXzckprungWa9MzPNUOa3VidFRZhT0quV2lF07u7aUq9luwyoaytSMU54EQMr1Gag94D_UHnMU2YtruG_VCD-n1w2pRRo4z1JltbFDB8X3T2khcUMmpfqlZJ9bjGYK2te7OUq4d9DU7kJnKC1TnL3lTq46aGB59KCrHgQSg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1735" data-original-width="1069" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3gi-jpBZ4jqHRi0MAo0teXzckprungWa9MzPNUOa3VidFRZhT0quV2lF07u7aUq9luwyoaytSMU54EQMr1Gag94D_UHnMU2YtruG_VCD-n1w2pRRo4z1JltbFDB8X3T2khcUMmpfqlZJ9bjGYK2te7OUq4d9DU7kJnKC1TnL3lTq46aGB59KCrHgQSg" width="148" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2000-2035 New Realities and Anxieties </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In a sense, you can call this era the post-horror era. Now authors are trying to subvert the traditions and tropes of the established horror genre. The history and expectations of horror as a genre are seen more and more as an obstacle to innovation. Also, this era is dealing with the sudden invasion of technology into everyone's personal lives. The ever-present shadow of the internet and social media has led to a distorted and unclear view of what constitutes reality. In this new era, our interpersonal relationships with others have irrevocably changed. We are both almost competently alienated from others while in a neverending connection with literally everyone all at once. So in this era, subversion and anxieties about technology and reality are at the forefront of the horror genre. This can only be an incomplete list since we are just beginning this era, and the future of horror is both unknown and exciting. Horror as a genre has thrived since its beginnings and is a vital and important part of our culture and literature.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Animal Aspect of the Movement - Adam Golaski (2008)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Road of Pins - Caitlin Kiernan (2013)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My World Has No Memories - Mark Samuels (2014)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Born Stillborn - Brian Evenson (2015)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Mare’s Nest - Richard Gavin (2016)</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-31549523897189572002023-06-29T00:43:00.002-04:002023-06-29T00:53:09.784-04:00Review: Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzJvuurLxrTlCs07296hnIIpS71zsdrINTw6NbAaIxmqSoTbHds5RhLF1SYr2fvK-BXHKiWaZVqdiuyUO-iSTuF7Am09ZF3V88arna4BXMkon7Tkr9m4TtDqTrzWlJE8oaLLApeWRMz-pxBjx2jU-e0lKiZl78seLZpsqaqSmvEkm6Jdl-Vi6nYbf1Xw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="664" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzJvuurLxrTlCs07296hnIIpS71zsdrINTw6NbAaIxmqSoTbHds5RhLF1SYr2fvK-BXHKiWaZVqdiuyUO-iSTuF7Am09ZF3V88arna4BXMkon7Tkr9m4TtDqTrzWlJE8oaLLApeWRMz-pxBjx2jU-e0lKiZl78seLZpsqaqSmvEkm6Jdl-Vi6nYbf1Xw=w265-h400" width="265" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a98351d9-7fff-c806-6549-a769d966c63f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From Agustina Bazterrica, the author of the new classic Tender is the Flesh, comes her new short story collection, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird. At turns playfully experimental and at times seeking to refine classic genre tropes, this book succeeds in fulfilling the promise of Tender is the Flesh. Taking inspiration from such masters of the short story as Jackson, Ligotti, Tuttle, and Borges, this is a heady stew of delirium and darkness. Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird is continuing the trend of new translations of amazing foreign horror, introducing English-speaking countries to all kinds of new and innovative writing. From Valancourt’s steady streams of translations of essential collections like Swedish Cults and The Black Maybe, to other collections getting critical acclaim like Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny, we are seeing a golden era of translations of the cutting edge of horror and dark literature. There are clear influences on this new era of world horror, from cinema, you can see the influence of films like Anti-Christ, Under the Skin, and Kairo. The long shadow of masters of horror literature such as Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman, and H.P. Lovecraft is also felt. But make no mistake, these new works are speaking on our new realities and are saying things that are so needed right now. I feel we are seeing the start of a new era of horror literature.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Agustina’s work is poetic and lush. It is a delight to read her prose. And the gorgeousness of her work only makes the deep dark hole you find yourself in at the end of one of her stories even more unsettling. Her work recalls the intense subjective tales of Borges, where instead of his making the everyday and normal into something divine or otherworldly, Agustina makes the everyday malignant and corrupting. The use of confusion and mystery, and the undertone of a sinister darkness or malignant influence is one of the macabre pleasures to be found in her writing. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tender is the Flesh was a book that reveled in the corrupt nature of humanity. We devour each other both physically and emotionally. The things we mistake for tenderness and love are actually hunger and lust. Social constructs hide the animalistic nature of ourselves. Now with Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, her new collection of short stories, Agustina has not brightened her view of humanity, instead, she goes further, and explores the darkness in all its facets. From mind-bending surrealist tales to inner explorations of a diseased human psyche, each story in this collection is varied and unique. Her palette is wide and the places she brings the reader are different maps, outlining the wounds inflicted on her characters. Her examinations of human cruelty recall Jackson, and her revealing the corrupting darkness that lies at the heart of humanity recalls Ligotti. But in terms of prose style and practice, she recalls Borges and Calvino. The reader is left confused yet fascinated at the end of one of her stories. And the mystery calls us to go further. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The first story in the book, A Light, Swift, and Monsterous Sound, absolutely makes a statement as the first tale and is one of those rare stories that can be said to be something only the author could have written. Unique and mind-bending, there is really nothing else like this tale. I also really loved Roberto, a surreal tale of genitals, strange physiologies, and what may lay hidden underneath our clothes. When I reached her story Elena-Marie Sandoz in the collection is when I was convinced this collection was a masterpiece. A bleak tale of identity in crises, this one stands alongside such masters as Ligotti and Borges with its oroborosian logic. And the final tale in the collection, The Solitary Ones, reads like a classic of horror fiction, probably the most straightforward horror tale in the collection, but in a collection this weird and experimental, the more traditional stance this tale takes reads seems challenging, especially coming at the end of the stories. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="text-wrap: nowrap;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Agustina Bazterrica is a groundbreaking new voice in literature. Her novel Tender is the Flesh deserves to be seen as one of the all-time great dystopian novels, and her collection Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird deserves to be recognized as one of the great horror collections of our time. Essential, innovative, deeply personal, and stunningly poetic. Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird is a must-read. The comparisons I have made to her work and Ligotti, Borges, Orwell, and Jackson are deserved. With only two books of hers in English translation, she has already cemented her place among the very best of literature. More, more...</span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-56692389864757765272023-05-22T02:06:00.003-04:002023-05-22T02:09:30.180-04:00Review: Caitlin Kiernan's Metamorphosis A<div class="separator"><br /></div><div class="separator"> </div><div class="separator" style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimg9dPfZTZSYndj-7K6ePqg8ZmWNWUJeEOdKMPAfiU7OemltkYgS1h5Z7A1baZGUUP1RtbJA78RGqkvJRGYQHTeSk_cUSTzrkMSai3jdcZvXCNl136qAodKGqLJfOXFri-7XywnlqX_Zi3pzqvQLPxddSFqNjsnyH2dImrjVwI1dcjMC4ER9unHrA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimg9dPfZTZSYndj-7K6ePqg8ZmWNWUJeEOdKMPAfiU7OemltkYgS1h5Z7A1baZGUUP1RtbJA78RGqkvJRGYQHTeSk_cUSTzrkMSai3jdcZvXCNl136qAodKGqLJfOXFri-7XywnlqX_Zi3pzqvQLPxddSFqNjsnyH2dImrjVwI1dcjMC4ER9unHrA=w251-h400" width="251" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></p><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">In life, there are two kinds of places. The places of everyday life. The apartment. The workplace. The hospital. The marketplace. These are the locations of normal reality. Where our everyday dramas and tragedies take place in the light. Careers and relationships. Social standings and money making. But then there is another place. A dark place of occulted knowledge. In the unseen places. Tunnels, lakes, ocean floors, old houses, and dark planets. Places where things creep, decay, survive, desire, and most of all… change. This is the country of madmen and poets. And from this place is where Caitlín Kiernan whispers their stories.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Caitlín Kiernan is one of the premier writers of fiction working today. Their work includes collections like The Ammonite Violin and Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart and novels like The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl. Their work is a blend of the weird, sci-fi, erotica, and horror genres. Their work explores the strange existence of creatures of flesh and bone living in a world where change and perversion is the norm. In their work, the dark touch is desired not feared.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>This world is a bleak place to live. The sun is too bright and our time is limited. Kiernan’s characters know this all too well. They are wounded, sad, and disenfranchised. And any salvation is better than the slow rot we have to us. In most horror, something invades our happy homes. Something seeks to destroy or subvert the status quo and the monstrous is a horrible thing that can happen even to the innocent. In Kiernan’s work, everyday life is a horrible thing. And we can only wish that there are “dark powers” to find.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>In their story “Metamorphosis A,” we find a woman waiting for her lover to return to their apartment. There has been some kind of intrusion upon the world by an alien force. A creature has arisen that lives deep in the earth that offers change to any who come to her. And her lover has gone down to receive that change. Seeking a dark salvation, she comes home bearing a mark of penetration that marks her as a recipient of the dark gift from the “being” and a cylinder containing a transforming disease, which you need to be marked to be able to have the disease affect you.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span> "Your bare feet are black with soot or dirt or whatever filth you’ve tracked back up from the deep places below the city. There are long scrapes on your legs, like maybe you ran into a patch of brambles along the way. And then I notice the welt beneath your chin, flesh gone puffy and purple and already turning necrotic. I might think it was only a bad spider bite, if I didn’t know the better. If I didn’t know about the stingers and the venom, the kiss of Athena to switch off your immune system. To make you receptive to what’s still to come."</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>These are horrors of watching your loved ones change and the loss of being left behind. And as with all journeys, the outcome is uncertain. Her lover has decided to accept a chance to become something… other. And the main character was scared to go with her and is scared of what is going to happen. One significant hurdle facing doctors is the apparent willingness of many people to be infected, despite these horrific consequences. Her lover lies on their bed and opens the canister and begins the change. The narrator passes out. Dreams of the dark places fill her head. An underground sea and a disease-birthing mother. And they do their dark work on her lover.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span> "How many countless generations were conceived while I slept in my chair and dreamed of that black lake? How many were born and nurtured deep within the hive of you and how many billions must have done their determined, busy work and perished when their time was done?"</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The nature of this change is mysterious. But the desperation of the unhappy is not. Thomas Ligotti said in his story “Vastarien,” “The only value of this world lay in its power – at certain times – to suggest another world.” Anything would be better than this world of rain and rot. We only wish dread Cthulhu lay dreaming under the sea. Mystery and darkness comfort us. In a sequence that reads like Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs, writing a remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing, the lover is changed into a tentacled horror seething and writhing in their bed.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>"And I’m on my knees then, as if I’d worship what they have made of you, as you must have worshipped in those secret underground temples, offering your grace of this change, praying to shed your furtive prayers and supplications to ancient bacterial gods for the unwanted and unyielding humanity."</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> The universe is ruled by chaos and breakdown. And these are the only gods who answer. These are the only gods who are in plain sight. And the only salvation is a dark one.</span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-81045035053450461692023-04-14T01:58:00.001-04:002023-04-14T01:58:48.557-04:00The Desire for Dark Powers<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think for a lot of us, it could be safe to say… life is oftentimes pretty miserable. We head to jobs we hate to pay for bills we would rather not pay. We search for love and get crushed beneath the wheels of desire. We eat, we sleep, and we watch our bodies break down. For some of us, we wish there was more. More fantasy, more magic, more to desire, more to indulge in. The dark paths tempt us. Sex and sin are preferred over working yourself to death. We wish we could sell ourselves to the dark powers. If Satan really existed, Cthulhu, whatever, we would pledge ourselves to their teachings. The Earth is so banal and full of drudgery and toil. Whatever moments of pleasure and magic are too fast and fleeting. The blackest of gods, the most sinister of evil, would provide our lives with a source of enchantment, of magic. And to be clear, when we speak of dark gods and evil, we are talking about an escape from day-to-day life. Real-life evil is what we are escaping from. The evils of miserable men and petty humanity. We seek an elevation from the mundane. To sign one's name in a book of blood, to convort with slimy tentacled creatures from the sunless depths of the ocean, to rut and writhe in the dark soil with horned gods, and to offer up one’s body to extraterrestrial doppelgangers, we would give anything to be able to live such magic. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we talk about the horror genre you hear a couple different explanations for why people gravitate to it. Everything from a fun rollercoaster ride being scared to horror providing a sense of awe or a sense of something larger than oneself. But one I don’t see talked about nearly enough is the desire for dark powers to really exist and the attraction that horror has for an escape from the banal. I find this longing most clearly articulated in works such as Robert Egger’s film The Witch, Caitlin Kiernan’s short fiction, Thomas Ligotti’s short fiction, and Tim Lucas’s novel Throat Sprockets. We will explore the longing to escape life and what happens when you find your desire. These works act as a celebration of getting lost in the dark, of a sinister sensuality, of an escape through the monstrous and the perverted. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHAC8PXj_WkWvL-8BO8vRdjkhNz8lN5KrskDwIiTv0zbCF5EfycoUxn59PWzzAWXLkfvYw-FcEZkDSwimwVdhxwAKOcg2MoKQYIbuNhciJM2j9LfLtvYh7jnuDJJViDmvlFm2Tty844aYaHuVh5PHb1ykQjhNUhO4G3dyqUmXDh5UKJCWBlM659dw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHAC8PXj_WkWvL-8BO8vRdjkhNz8lN5KrskDwIiTv0zbCF5EfycoUxn59PWzzAWXLkfvYw-FcEZkDSwimwVdhxwAKOcg2MoKQYIbuNhciJM2j9LfLtvYh7jnuDJJViDmvlFm2Tty844aYaHuVh5PHb1ykQjhNUhO4G3dyqUmXDh5UKJCWBlM659dw" width="156" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Ligotti’s work, in his nightmare towns, creeping unseen managers, malignant puppets, and art exhibitions of the icy bleakness of things, he shows that horror literature and its enchantments, even at its most disturbing, are still more desired than this crumby banal life of decay and disappointment. Ligotti’s work is full of an all-encompassing pessimism. But yet, there is an enjoyment in the defiling of what we see as the things that make life worth living. Ligotti attacks all our pretenses of bodily integrity, our notions of achievement and upward mobility, and our conception of self-identity. But his prose and his method of attack are almost erotic, the sentences alluring and the choice of words intoxicating. Ligotti’s work is this kind of private exploration of the anxieties and desires that Ligotti has shared through his brilliant prose. The crooked small towns and plagues of nightmarish organisms provide an escape from the horrors of existence. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWynp8aDRwa87vh-e0Zaar2iYpF79zWlbOICBRAWl6Wa_kmLK8_5fBPChm1PD2UZWAYLwWLDRkOyKvIar8LTEdeHXMzQK9Vq4SEgZWStd5t2X5lLV_3K2K-2rmIq_315Jz0rxrwcUcP3NUXoVqU9U2y59Kgv9uEGfVtt_WGNgKdCwCMdXk3vOG6I0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="220" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWynp8aDRwa87vh-e0Zaar2iYpF79zWlbOICBRAWl6Wa_kmLK8_5fBPChm1PD2UZWAYLwWLDRkOyKvIar8LTEdeHXMzQK9Vq4SEgZWStd5t2X5lLV_3K2K-2rmIq_315Jz0rxrwcUcP3NUXoVqU9U2y59Kgv9uEGfVtt_WGNgKdCwCMdXk3vOG6I0" width="159" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span><span> </span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the great novels of obsession and dark desire is Tim Lucas’s Throat Sprockets: The hope, the wanted allure of maybe catching some unknown film halfway through on late-night television, or picking up some random DVD from the video store because of some intriguing cover art, and finding a life-changing experience unfold before you is examined here. One of those midnight movies that seem made just for you, showing you the world as you had thought only you see it. The images, the sound design, and the characters become like a second dream life. And your waking thoughts keep returning to the unspooling film, permanently playing in your dreams. Pornos, horror films, noir, whatever it may be, are all viewed best late at night by yourself. A celebration of obsession. Sitting by yourself at the local movie theater, you get to get away from your day-to-day life and escape into a wholly different world. The shock of seeing something you maybe didn’t mean to expose yourself to, and finding the experience delicious. Or seeing your most secret thoughts explored on the big screen. You have finally found someone who understands your innermost desires. In Throat Sprockets the erotic potential of bare necks, piercing the skin, and bloodletting is loveling exalted. You go to work and try your best to keep your head above water, but deep down you have this secret life, of secret passions and desires. And sometimes you find something, a film or maybe a novel, that understands what you crave, and helps you sate those hungers. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXkl75S1p9vuOGq_pVGmRRXr4cyit_a0Nng_-W2RLCSt2N3mxQH58Ls1hFe5_dGCE2NREVYC1WZC8EbetUkC06B8zlq8xU_qzYAK3WfSjVjUTkPvgr7roicOEc7HqkD7SXgV--BLkq_rRFvD9fkTyMW5tRgymado926mxcuEVU4NinTspQwCjIjRI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="642" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXkl75S1p9vuOGq_pVGmRRXr4cyit_a0Nng_-W2RLCSt2N3mxQH58Ls1hFe5_dGCE2NREVYC1WZC8EbetUkC06B8zlq8xU_qzYAK3WfSjVjUTkPvgr7roicOEc7HqkD7SXgV--BLkq_rRFvD9fkTyMW5tRgymado926mxcuEVU4NinTspQwCjIjRI" width="154" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caitlin Kiernan is one of the modern masters of the dark and weird tale. In many stories, Kiernan illustrates characters who long for the unknown, no matter what the risk. Whatever it be in Metamorphosis A where a woman is fated to watch as her girlfriend is lured into the underground dark to take benediction from some subterranean plague goddess, or Houses Under the Sea, where a man watches his lover, a head of a bizarre oceanic cult, called down with her followers into the subterranean depths of the ocean, to strange and inhuman things awaiting them. Kiernan’s fiction sometimes shows the lover watching as the loved one follows a dark path toward self-destruction and a kind of painful liberation. Sometimes Kiernan's fiction shows the narrator longing for an abysmal transcendence they can't seem to find. The interplay between what dark path you must take to save yourself, and what selfsame path leads to your self-destruction is a major trope of Kiernan’s fiction. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpqM7Lz9UoZsGgQ9X6meOg3y3XIytZzT9y3_uDYtBul28pqipPOYCPtqvo2SACCDhWd3pOxrk2S-Rrp7P0B9B4H9jZB_2zO8akb7VFTZHvV6F4WbHvYnuJqdRphTvI6jnkbt66IrQN03Z7ZYEcpmzNR1tJBqRWhQKPdL0fOWG-TEy1eIF6vTWHSws" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="259" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjpqM7Lz9UoZsGgQ9X6meOg3y3XIytZzT9y3_uDYtBul28pqipPOYCPtqvo2SACCDhWd3pOxrk2S-Rrp7P0B9B4H9jZB_2zO8akb7VFTZHvV6F4WbHvYnuJqdRphTvI6jnkbt66IrQN03Z7ZYEcpmzNR1tJBqRWhQKPdL0fOWG-TEy1eIF6vTWHSws" width="162" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In The Witch, the dark powers come for a young girl named Thomasin. After all else has failed her. Her family. Her religion. Satan comes and lifts her from the dirt and gives her new life and new purpose. Thomasin grew up in colonial New England living in a stifling home ruled by religion and work. In The Witch, Thomasin watches as her life is destroyed and all lay in ruin, yet she is offered a new path, a left-hand path that leads into a beautiful darkness. Tomasin was both accused and shamed by her family, overlooked and undervalued by those who were her loved ones. But one comes from the dark, Satan, who sees her worth and her value. He presents her with a book. With a space for her to sign her name in blood. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a kind of person, a group of people that I include myself in, that I call horror obsessives. These are people who live and die for the art of horror. And not horror in a traditional sense but in an expanded sense, in art house films, poetry, essays, art, music, etc. Wherever one finds their fix. It exemplifies a certain kind of mindset. A certain way of looking at the world. It goes beyond mere fandom into a philosophy of living. A never-ending search for fragile beauty, for certain flowers that can only bloom at night. Horror speaks of a certain longing, for magic that life rarely provides. Where one finds fantasy to be a lie, where realism just depresses, there is a literature, a cinema, waiting for those who are lost and broken. Horror speaks to those who have no safe home. And understands the desire for darkness and corruption. </span></p><p><br /><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-75927249105979062852023-04-01T01:26:00.001-04:002023-04-01T01:28:14.069-04:00H.P. Lovecraft and his Subterranean Desires<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZFIoNoA3qClbzr93GIVPpeskru_YEpMIPC-nl8B5t3Y5iEWuXoJX5gE7kNmWyNAxxyf3DbeUBA9rL1Ab9CQt1Aclp2jeMX63jThw87btLX7mBHdMTa5_yP_r-3NOnTpxUGTR4dMBR6lENbCp1d_tqsTQA8K4Gk3Ml_1yTLhjZxMYAVvINOX70lXc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1281" data-original-width="969" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZFIoNoA3qClbzr93GIVPpeskru_YEpMIPC-nl8B5t3Y5iEWuXoJX5gE7kNmWyNAxxyf3DbeUBA9rL1Ab9CQt1Aclp2jeMX63jThw87btLX7mBHdMTa5_yP_r-3NOnTpxUGTR4dMBR6lENbCp1d_tqsTQA8K4Gk3Ml_1yTLhjZxMYAVvINOX70lXc" width="182" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The writer of erotica and H.P. Lovecraft share very similar methods and goals. Both have a favored scene or scenario they return to again and again. For this essay, we shall examine Lovecraft's many stories focused on subterranean locations. Cemeteries, dark tunnels built by no human hand, and cavernous swamps, are all places that feature strongly in Lovecraft’s work. For Lovecraft, the underground places are not just places where things rot and decay, but places where secret knowledge may be found. A kind of hideous revelation awaits those who plunge down into the lightless depths. Lovecraft repeatedly proclaims his love for a civil culture, the culture of gentlemen, of a society dedicated to learning and the humanities, of politeness and distance. Yet his writing reveals a seething undercurrent to his personality. One obsessed with bodily decay, with the infinite mutations of the physical form, of landscapes of disease and abnormalities. A wonderland of plague pits and decomposing corpses, Lovecraft describes them as a pornographer would describe an orgy of young nubile vixens. Lovecraft kept returning and returning to the lightless abysses of the earth beneath our feet. Graveyards, grottos, underground lakes, and sacred chambers bring Lovecraft returning again and again. The Statement of Randolph Carter, The Rats in the Walls, The Festival, The Hound, The Horror at Red Hook, and others all fetishistically return to the sunless depths.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of Lovecraft’s more harsh critics describe Lovecraft’s writing as overwrought and too adjective filled. But when Lovecraft enters these abysmal depths, he enters into a kind of ecstasy, shown through language, a literary delirium of nightmare and panic. Why did Lovecraft enter into these states when describing inhuman abominations and bleak landscapes of bones and rot? These places to him were…erotic. He would return again and again to the fetishized place of secret inner pleasure. His narrators all plead how such knowledge of such places must be withheld, how just knowing about these whispered secrets was enough to damn a person who looked too deep into the mysteries. His characters flee in horror from half-human creatures and alien shapes barely seen in the shadows. But the secret here, the final mystery of all of Lovecraft’s mysteries, is that he desires the darkness, the nightmare, the other, to penetrate him to the core. He plays a game with the reader, and with himself. To protest at the awfulness of it all, all the while taking one more peek closer, one more touch of the strange, one more visit into the unutterable realms of derangement. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In The Shadow over Innsmouth, the narrator after fleeing for most of the tale actually becomes one of the half-human half-fish hybrids. In The Haunter of the Dark, Robert Blake keeps returning to the ancient church and, against all reason, seems to desire to want to be absorbed by the shadowy presence in the steeple. And The Music of Erich Zann haunts the dreams and inner life of the student whose life forever changed after he first heard the mad viol player in the dark of night, the student finds himself trying to discover his way back to the music and the viol player. This desire for a cherished doom is hinted at, not in every story, but in enough that it colors his entire oeuvre. This desire seems to be not a conscious problem Lovecraft is trying to work out, but it does seem to… reveal itself in his work and maybe is a secret he has not come to terms with, It is in his more interesting work, where the evil is not to be banished, it is realized that it is a desired thing, something to transform the banality of life with, to allow yourself to be corrupted by, to be forever altered, that Lovecraft is at his best and his work is most revealing. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black-clad men and women in leather, whips and shackles, the smell of sweat and semen. These are the archetypal images of the pornographer. In Lovecraft, the dream imagery is extremely worked out and personal to him. Strange flesh quivering in the shadows, figures wearing masks resembling human faces to hide the unknown horror beneath, landscapes of bone both human and inhuman, underground lakes that have never seen the sun surrounded by fungal shores lined with lichen and slime. These are the dreamlands Lovecraft fantasies in. A kind of charnel paradise he escapes to in his dreams. Or maybe a uterine fantasy? The underground as womb? A birthing ground of horror? The horrors of the body and of the crowds terrify him. So in his dreams he perverts the body and the crowds, he corrupts and disfigures them. The once familiar body becomes a monstrous other, unknowable and alien. The crowd becomes an infestation, overtaking and altering landscapes into their own image. Everything familiar is put at a distance and made strange. Your body, your home, and your loved ones, all become alien and sinister. Lovecraft recreates the universe in his own image of self-disgust and panic. In a sense, Lovecraft sees himself as alien, as abhorrent, his characters are not fleeing from some menace from beyond space, they are fleeing from themselves. There is this really interesting interplay between sadism and masochism in his works. In some of his stories, he favors the unutterable monstrosity, in some he favors the weak-willed victim. Both are roles Lovecraft relishes playing in his perverse psychodramas of horror and the other. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do Lovecraft’s characters return again and again to the abysmal darkness? Why tease out the eons cursed abominations, flee for safety, only to retreat back, playing a kind of game with them? Why does Lovecraft himself obsessively return to the rotten earth riddled with wormholes and fetid underground swamps of his literary world? The same reason de Sade returns to the hidden chateau's where one can hear the cracks of whips in the air and the screams of young maidens. The same reason Sacher-Masoch returns to the bottom of his mistress's heel. The same reason Bataille returns to kisses that taste of rat and his dying goddesses. But both horror and the erotic, are not meant to be explained. They are meant to be cherished, to be enjoyed, in secrecy, in darkness. So let us end this essay by saying for those who enjoy Lovecraft's work, Ligotti's work, Campbell's work, Tuttle's work, I would recommend trying your hand at Mirbeau's The Torture Garden, Reage's The Story of O, or Robbe-Grillet's A Sentimental Novel, and see if you don't find a similar pleasure in their darknesses. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-24377782436954681892023-01-12T04:31:00.000-05:002023-01-12T04:31:19.381-05:00Review: The Black Maybe by Attila Veres<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKgNV_cEXh3X6JALOpsfDbIli9V8u1EfmxYNf48wu6akjyuP8D3GXVm0tc4G7t6QochnBfzteb9Tx40rxdBkgQ9_VW-_ln4SX-WI354degC7hvUsHgDgvlCN0ndrpF8_PqOe3hixKFWwS_2OsDI__sMHBw1suQ4YuHSpBjdDCCOWAVuFq6-XEs_OQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="279" data-original-width="180" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjKgNV_cEXh3X6JALOpsfDbIli9V8u1EfmxYNf48wu6akjyuP8D3GXVm0tc4G7t6QochnBfzteb9Tx40rxdBkgQ9_VW-_ln4SX-WI354degC7hvUsHgDgvlCN0ndrpF8_PqOe3hixKFWwS_2OsDI__sMHBw1suQ4YuHSpBjdDCCOWAVuFq6-XEs_OQ=w206-h320" width="206" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Continuing our focus on Valancourt Press and their line of international horror literature, we now come to Attila Veres’s The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales. Another collection that sprung from the success of the first volume of Valancourt’s Book of World Horror Stories and the brilliant tale from Veres that was contained within, The Time Remaining. Valancourt has been releasing some major collections making their English language debut, and The Black Maybe is deserving of being called a major event. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In The Black Maybe there is a mix of some genuinely creepy horror tales and stories that lean into more dark fantasy. His stories mix this chilly folkish rural feeling with a hint of post-Soviet occupation paranoia. His prose is crisp and elegant. His characters are fleshed out and believable. And his horrors are the kind that doesn't go away at the coming of dawn. His stories take place in this kind of dark eastern European country of horrors. A land of strange growths in the fields and lurking shadows in the corners of your bedroom. For his characters, a kind of dark knowledge awaits to be discovered, or relearned, by them. There is a realization of the hidden traumas the character was overlooking. Things will not turn out how you think they will. You don’t realize the pain and the darkness hidden by your seemingly happy life. And all these hidden traumas erupt into the character's reality, disrupting their lives and corrupting them forever. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do confess a bias towards a more realistic form of horror than the more fantastic/fantasy forms of horror fiction. And this collection seems to be split about half and half between realism and fantasy. And what I mean by these terms is in realistic horror, the story takes place in a world we identify as our own, and something infiltrates or contaminates the protagonist's reality, whereas horror in a more fantasy vein takes place in a world that is not ours and follows rules that are not the rules that govern our day to day world. I do feel his realistic horror is his strongest ( and don’t let me misrepresent these tales, even his realist works end up in some very strange places indeed ) but for lovers of more abstract or fantastic horror, this book is very much for you. His horror fantasy tales are gorgeous and surreal and are at the forefront of such work being done today. A mix of folk horror and fantasy, these are strange stories that have few relatives in English horror literature but are deeply rooted in central and eastern European fantastic literature. I would say his realistic horror does show some influence of Campbell and Ligotti, both of whom also drew influence from eastern European literature. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The story that wowed readers in the Valancourt Book of World Horror is The Time Remaining. And it remains just as strong on a reread. The Time Remaining is a tale of creeping dread with a whiplash kind of ending. A mom gaslighting her child into believing his dolls are dying, with the intention of getting her kid to get rid of such silly toys so he can grow up to be a more mature young man. So the young boy starts seeing his dolls actually becoming sick and falling apart. He tries his best to fix them, becoming an expert in doll surgery. Yet his mother has more revelations in store for him. In the Snow, Sleeping is a tale about a couple that goes on a vacation, meaning to get some rest and enjoy each other's company. What happens is a descent into pure nightmare. Fears of commitment and intimacy follow them on their vacation, and outside forces come to show the true blackened heart of their relationship. To Bite a Dog may be his best work. It's the work that is most restrained, and it may be his most idea-driven. Something, or someone, is attacking dogs at the local park. And a man strangely comes to suspect his lover may have some kind of knowledge of what is happening. And again here we have a strange kind of revelation in store for the main character. To Bite a Dog is a very unique tale, a story that raises some interesting questions and has really fascinating character dynamics</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second half of the book falls more into a dark fantasy direction. Strange beings and weird small-town rituals, these stories are like perverted fairy tales. Here his prose is sharp, characters realistic, in contrast to the dive into delirium and strange realities these tales take the reader on. Post-soviet era towns, dark impenetrable forests, a feeling of underlying paranoia, and a seething nightmare world found to be hiding behind what we complacently call the normal world. In stories like Return to the Midnight School and The Black Maybe, something rotten has taken root in the soil. A past that can not be hidden in the closet. Something that infects life. The corruption has not gone away, it has just been hidden, waiting to erupt. He draws on strange myths and the darker side of classic fantasy tales, yet has a very modern writing style and purpose to his fiction. Here his characters dwell in this place of diseased fantasies, a kind of putrid never-never land.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Black Maybe and its author Attila Veres bring an exciting new voice to the horror field. Seeing both the homegrown horrors of his native country and the subtle influence of western horror literature makes for a fascinating read. He shows new paths for horror to take while furthering the tradition of horror in literature. This is a remarkable achievement and another example of the great work Valancourt is doing in bringing these important and remarkable non-English works to an English-speaking audience. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-68203614160718027002022-12-25T02:43:00.000-05:002022-12-25T02:43:50.232-05:00Review: Hellraiser 2022<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0-4XBIRK4b9oxwT4AGwKdguMtpTIrOHs6CIkgckuZG8bJyAij0Z-jmmc1BMf8voT_dPYBWA0fDKJ5t5dqMKXHlCgjnzClkol__nCNFbTTGQ2-jyCyloApkTEuAkvbe3jQK_be5gu0oIN9yy2tCZ7QkChgXpcAl50EbcDDSweDdlUUPJg_WZrw21Y" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2025" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0-4XBIRK4b9oxwT4AGwKdguMtpTIrOHs6CIkgckuZG8bJyAij0Z-jmmc1BMf8voT_dPYBWA0fDKJ5t5dqMKXHlCgjnzClkol__nCNFbTTGQ2-jyCyloApkTEuAkvbe3jQK_be5gu0oIN9yy2tCZ7QkChgXpcAl50EbcDDSweDdlUUPJg_WZrw21Y=w216-h320" width="216" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 are titans in horror cinema. Absolutely game changing and taboo breaking. Dealing head on with a abysmal sexuality, the desire for the grotesque and the forbidden, and the masochistic love of what harms us, Hellraiser has never really been equaled since its release. But unfortunately there have been years and years of bad direct to video sequels that are just literally worthless. So when news of a new Hellraiser was announced, with a promise to try to be a worthy film that would stand with the first two, fans were understandably excited. Fans have long been eager for a Hellraiser to return to its proper form, rescued from low budget quick cash ins of the franishise. The announcement of a new Hellraiser, one helmed by David Bruckner, who seemed to have a lot of respect for the material, and the teaser trailers quickly spread all over social media. The question then arises… is this new Hellraiser a worthy extension of the series? The short and quick answer is regrettably, no, but not for lack of trying. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This new Hellraiser focuses on Riley, a young troubled girl who juggles a drug addiction with asperations to try to better her life. In a little scheme to steal some rich persons stored away treasures she comes across a mysterious puzzle box, and is lead down some dark paths. The film features schemes within schemes involving a reclusive billionaire collector and a shady bad boy boyfriend, and its up to Riley to solve all the puzzles and survive the traps set for her. One of my first criticisms of this film, is how much the main character just is not entertwined with the box, all she wants is to get away from it and free her loved ones from ir. In the original Hellraiser and Hellbound, the siren call of the box kept bringing the characters back. All the characters, even if they didnt fully want to come to acknowledge to themselves, secretly or not so secretly, desired the perverse touch of the Cenobites. In this new one, the Cenobites are just monsters to escape from, nothing more. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7F3TUCWMNCMmYLi2DDAPGI5fZM3NuhpUHUWMprSkcELmB8InJkNWTg2TgSakqagXIWRlUqEUWS3EzaIO4ibYoC-2X_ob7gIiXbPvzBffzGj46AvihKNlLkvg_P8jcxG19sGzwqvGHBULK0ByTTtp5-GlZ5fu6K6ZcLdULf5Mo78r3dg43SNSSJIY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="870" data-original-width="2048" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7F3TUCWMNCMmYLi2DDAPGI5fZM3NuhpUHUWMprSkcELmB8InJkNWTg2TgSakqagXIWRlUqEUWS3EzaIO4ibYoC-2X_ob7gIiXbPvzBffzGj46AvihKNlLkvg_P8jcxG19sGzwqvGHBULK0ByTTtp5-GlZ5fu6K6ZcLdULf5Mo78r3dg43SNSSJIY=w400-h170" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">And therein lay one of the problems of this film. It is almost presented as a caper that went wrong, with the characters trying to get out of the bind that they find themselves in. In the original Hellraiser the film focused on a family and the diseased desires that lurked underneath the fake smiles of family life. It dealt with disappointment, suppressed desire, and the urge to escape the vapid day to day life of its protagonists. In this new film it makes a big deal of the main character being a drug addict. But then does nothing with that plot thread and just kind of forgets about it. It would have been an interesting film to deal with the desire to escape through drugs and how that relates to the desire to escape through sex and perversion. How the Cenobites would have zeroed in on her addictions and made her explore the pleasures and pains of addiction and delirium. But that is not the film we get. It is like they only gave her “issues” to make the audience feel for her, which just does not work and isn't needed. The film develops characters for about ten minutes then turns into a figure out how to escape the monsters thriller. And it all just feels flat. And the ending is kind of laughable. Riley just… chooses to walk away? That’s it? In the original films, once a boundary has been crossed there is no going back to normalcy, there is a price to pay for transgression. Here you get to pick your prize, or just leave. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well if the plot in unengaging what about the stars of the show? The Cenobites? Sadly they are a bit underwhelming. You can see that the creators of the film tried to create something that could stand next to the wonderfully perverse designs of the original Cenobties. Except these new Cenobites seem to be both so exaggerated to be too unrealistic to affect the audience and also wooden and just with no life in the actual execution of the look of the Cenobites. The makeup and costumes the actors wear just seem strangely plastic and fake. The designs of them are actually a bit interesting, but unfortunately fake and unconvincing. And the director really does nothing to set up the Cenobites, no operatic entrance like the grand appearance of the Cenobites to Kirsty in the original film. They just kind of… show up. I remember watching Barker’s Hellraiser and being wowed by the Cenobites, and wondering what dark tortures they had went through, what diseased perversions run through their blood, and what designs they had for the solvers of the box they took across the divide with them. The new Cenobites? Oh hey they are kind of cool I guess, and then literally forget about them as soon as the film is over. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjsF0pOkPXtRe1257TJ9S9MJWPjZUNKVOlr_jIGTpaxKq-ugNyU60T9rzygnL1FSMH-w3tT7LjkzOCRwO5bob2Hzg1IExwRX6unTKFj7fSNHj--wHrDmNVVYGjvMYGfyittMhwGLgzVU_HyJ1eVlYitHTkdhFr4cHarhQB4jjRzjI2lnLakDpFHb-A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjsF0pOkPXtRe1257TJ9S9MJWPjZUNKVOlr_jIGTpaxKq-ugNyU60T9rzygnL1FSMH-w3tT7LjkzOCRwO5bob2Hzg1IExwRX6unTKFj7fSNHj--wHrDmNVVYGjvMYGfyittMhwGLgzVU_HyJ1eVlYitHTkdhFr4cHarhQB4jjRzjI2lnLakDpFHb-A=w400-h200" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other problems. The score has occasional rifts on Christopher Young’s score but never does anything to assert itself. There are multiple plot points that are just laughable. Anti-Cenobite fence? Yes that is really a thing in this film. The unasked for overhaul of the mythos. They portray the Cenobites as kind of game show hosts, presenting different prizes to choose from for who ever solves the puzzle box, is interesting if this was a different film, but does not quite work for the Hellraiser mythos. I feel the original’s notion with the Cenobites as explorers and experimentors in flesh and desire, and when you summon them, you have no choice but to go over the divide and taste their pleasures, opening the puzzle box a willful act of submission to outer powers, is much more evocative. And most fatally, the film is just not erotic or pervy, the kiss of death to a film that wears the Hellraiser moniker. The film is dry and bizarrely undaring. There are no taboos explored, no edges being crossed. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjfPhrgHkIikuW6ct-g7AYCIz3G8upINv2A7tFYgkjbzcnpv15tc7vsu1HBRLnY3vzWMjdlnLKfIn-oPpxd-wgKGnBduKphZOYuL0se6A7rXNc-YrqJa_4Ff-ZNNwpoDHfpnycxipdLilbBaMb1LHvo3xgKL686-5qJ3GXOFFu-VS9pYXUkpgk2f8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1716" data-original-width="3042" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjfPhrgHkIikuW6ct-g7AYCIz3G8upINv2A7tFYgkjbzcnpv15tc7vsu1HBRLnY3vzWMjdlnLKfIn-oPpxd-wgKGnBduKphZOYuL0se6A7rXNc-YrqJa_4Ff-ZNNwpoDHfpnycxipdLilbBaMb1LHvo3xgKL686-5qJ3GXOFFu-VS9pYXUkpgk2f8" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This new Hellraiser does have a couple good points, the recasting of Pinhead, performed with a subtle menace and a sadistic glee by Jamie Clayton is a stand out performance. You can tell the creators do respect what Clive Barker created and tried their hands at creating a interesting extension of the Hellraiser mythos, but it just honestly missed the mark. Its a brave failure. It is faint praise to say this is the third best Hellraiser film after the original Hellraiser and Hellbound, but it does not really have any competition. Barker’s Hellraiser and Hellbound were dirty fairy tales, fairy tales about fucking and the shedding of skins revealing the meat and sinew underneath the surface. Obsessive and daring, those films left a rather pleasant scar on its audience, luring them to return again and again to its self created mythos. This new Hellraiser, despite its best intentions, it just another Hollywood style horror thrilride, sometimes enjoyable while you are on the ride, but instantly forgotten as soon as you get off. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-66429494035349667042022-11-05T02:25:00.000-04:002022-11-05T02:25:09.868-04:00Review: Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Earwig<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1BGbOzqhLbTx09rzZjxPwVPhYno2cEUZ2W9Jllr3AnPFJfi72Rbgzpy05qncHtTYd0e0imdFUjBKcb8ZoYxgQO2w348y74PMdWb7SXNqf_hOJDlcYG55vlLuHF1YMN-Qc_k0mRMX_IWz3562EVKtDPuWe-fangjsfNYzv02_Z0QPy3ZWB-pKdrpM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="276" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1BGbOzqhLbTx09rzZjxPwVPhYno2cEUZ2W9Jllr3AnPFJfi72Rbgzpy05qncHtTYd0e0imdFUjBKcb8ZoYxgQO2w348y74PMdWb7SXNqf_hOJDlcYG55vlLuHF1YMN-Qc_k0mRMX_IWz3562EVKtDPuWe-fangjsfNYzv02_Z0QPy3ZWB-pKdrpM" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me just say it, Lucile Hadzihalilovic is a vastly underappreciated director. She is a true heir to Lynch, Cronenberg, and Kubrick in this era of corporate fast-food cinema. Hadzihalilovic should be in the same standing with horror fans as Eggers, Aster, and Garland. But for whatever reason, her work is completely under the radar. Innocence, Evolution, and her new film Earwig are future cult classics that have not found their cult yet. As original and personal as Strickland’s or von Trier’s films, it’s only a matter of time before filmgoers catch up to this brilliant filmmaker. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqjhotAPCQTt-b0H5cZCR1TYTTZsu3Ei4SQoYlY63kRbIdA0spOEG_5QAizkCyLwEUnhnJgzQmJHl6dtuQNDeqHJon4KykP5wVVVJI8qYGk5svKU0O8BCvusiFj86icCoJAAoKji4C10A6sDbtlgNdTT1WCaKCaZ-UOdiRt1TZli_opszTDKl4be0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="267" data-original-width="640" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqjhotAPCQTt-b0H5cZCR1TYTTZsu3Ei4SQoYlY63kRbIdA0spOEG_5QAizkCyLwEUnhnJgzQmJHl6dtuQNDeqHJon4KykP5wVVVJI8qYGk5svKU0O8BCvusiFj86icCoJAAoKji4C10A6sDbtlgNdTT1WCaKCaZ-UOdiRt1TZli_opszTDKl4be0=w400-h168" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucile has a new film out called Earwig, that has been doing the film festival circuit and is now available for viewing on some streaming platforms but unfortunately has yet to have an official release on physical media. Earwig is maybe her most abstract work. A master of the slow burn, Lucile’s films trade in mystery and a kind of forever-delayed suspense. Earwig is also her most painterly film, the still cinematography, and silent film bodily expressions are just breathtaking in their beauty. Nothing is ever fully explained in her films, yet the implications are so enticing. As each new film comes out it seems the existential dread increases and increases. Her first film, Innocence, had this kind of dread just simmering in the background. A film that also worked as a subtle form of allegory, societal and gender roles were examined within the maze-like walls of a foster home. In her next film, Evolution, the dread is more in the foreground. A film of body horror, strange births, and hints at some kind of oceanic influence on the human reproductive system. Weird sci-fi mixed with Lovecraftian themes all told in a whisper in a seaside village. In Earwig the dread suffocates everyone and everything. Seemingly influenced by Eastern European film, the film is reticent in its agenda and a certain malignant air hangs over the broken-down post-world war landscape. Also, attention must be given to the score. A gorgeous and hypnotic score by Augustin Viard quietly lurks in the background, enchanting and sublime. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiNoHArP94UL-ZL4cWNFjBLgw6MsYoiV0v6wGFlZ6z3ZK6Osr0YB7kLMIEFAzeoC3iSnk2hiZ5gQPJ3T4I4ujNRxoSWVIshpdYOCq5UZTZNi1SMOVMXU2DrgmV6heRPx13NDaYil4rc-aGfweDuZ-MtqdteNIl1nLLHPv2ja3i-vTROwd-ROPV9HI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="159" data-original-width="318" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiNoHArP94UL-ZL4cWNFjBLgw6MsYoiV0v6wGFlZ6z3ZK6Osr0YB7kLMIEFAzeoC3iSnk2hiZ5gQPJ3T4I4ujNRxoSWVIshpdYOCq5UZTZNi1SMOVMXU2DrgmV6heRPx13NDaYil4rc-aGfweDuZ-MtqdteNIl1nLLHPv2ja3i-vTROwd-ROPV9HI=w400-h200" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seemingly set after one of the World Wars, which one is not clear, the film centers on a man, Albert Scellinc, who has been entrusted to take care of a little girl named Mia. Mia is a recluse, living a solitary life with Albert. She has problems with her teeth, a strange kind of contraption creates ice dentures for her, and she never leaves the cavernous house they both occupy. Mia is seemingly lost in dreams, playing with trash and insects, wondering at the suggestive paintings in the house. Albert is a quiet man, who goes through the functions of his duties with quiet resignation. But under the calm, good worker surface, his mind is shadowed by secrets and confusion. Past traumas and private regrets haunt him. He keeps his demons calm by keeping himself busy working and once in a while sneaking down to the local pub to have some drinks while Mia is home passed out asleep. But his secret history ends up coming calling to Albert, and the past and present become confused, and the film starts to loop in on itself, ending in delirium and disorientation. Uncanny strangers and silent watchers haunt a depopulated landscape. The doppelganger and the cuckoo are quietly hinted at. To watch Earwig is to drown into a black abyss of phantastical cinema.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiiPOOc9ClTwxHYD9Dl9scWqRqGKMI7lu8m-uHW3JyxNicuIUkyzIZwC75BBlO-ArB7xe44DqnSrcqVAUudIAnsIqzob9wRSHjfVPfJDsZ2oXa3w3bw2NWzgH1GRAoQAEsNCUfiM-bEwiYjszIlDaGehx_jAwQRB1YpJXgsr2gTSdlaiLD-O8N0CI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="145" data-original-width="348" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiiPOOc9ClTwxHYD9Dl9scWqRqGKMI7lu8m-uHW3JyxNicuIUkyzIZwC75BBlO-ArB7xe44DqnSrcqVAUudIAnsIqzob9wRSHjfVPfJDsZ2oXa3w3bw2NWzgH1GRAoQAEsNCUfiM-bEwiYjszIlDaGehx_jAwQRB1YpJXgsr2gTSdlaiLD-O8N0CI=w400-h166" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to describe a film like Earwig. Its primary concerns are not in plotting and narrative twists but in mood, atmosphere, and ideas. It falls into a tradition of films like Black Moon, Messiah of Evil, and The Tenant, films that are slow burns, that exist in a sort of haze, that star sleepwalkers, and feature deep dives into surrealism and nightmare. A late-night film, perfect for viewing while falling into and out of dream states. All her films are ambiguous, with a certain hallucinatory background noise humming in the background. A cinema for somnambulists. The feeling there is a secret message behind the film that you just can't quite grasp, so you return over and over, obsessed with the mystery. Here is to directors still making difficult work, long may difficult and dreamy cinema live on. </span></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-58992273905507578922022-10-25T03:40:00.009-04:002022-10-25T03:47:28.349-04:00Ten short story recommendations for October reading. <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrpI9vDKpL8xjI_xcQChjvbSi2fxUGtDEFXzRVIySH0cGR-oMIaFYJYGaZVRuCXQexWE9Vm8FY9U_kdxGCliFW4ZplaYBqLD51r6lkeh1c5gt1XhcQehiBgChk7NlqKQ3cW265NIi2b0ww44_XSWL_LQnYF4f_qZN8uWFPpFjruWSVibzADgG3HbY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="440" data-original-width="338" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrpI9vDKpL8xjI_xcQChjvbSi2fxUGtDEFXzRVIySH0cGR-oMIaFYJYGaZVRuCXQexWE9Vm8FY9U_kdxGCliFW4ZplaYBqLD51r6lkeh1c5gt1XhcQehiBgChk7NlqKQ3cW265NIi2b0ww44_XSWL_LQnYF4f_qZN8uWFPpFjruWSVibzADgG3HbY=w246-h320" width="246" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Here is a list of ten tales, these I feel are some of the best short horror stories ever written, definite personal favorites, and perfect for a dark chilly October night. In order of publication:</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a09b400f-7fff-46f5-a5ad-422d298e941f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. The Black Seal by Arthur Machen: A folk tale that delves deep into secret cults, strange survivals, and what the dark woods may hide. A slow burn that definitely delivers. Up there with The Great God Pan in terms of Machen's best works.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson: A surprisingly horrific tale for the time period. A wonderful mix of the ghost story and the vampire tale. A definite highlight in what many would consider to be the golden age of horror fiction. Its power to unnerve remains unblemished. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. The Music of Erich Zann by H. P. Lovecraft: One of the master's best works. A tale of a strange town and the creeping darkness that engulfs a mad violinist and his seemingly innocent yet maybe not-so-innocent visitor. A work that shows Lovecraft's best work usually fell outside his vaunted Cthulhu mythos stories. Up there with The Hound and The Festival for his best works. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. Skeleton by Ray Bradbury: Almost a basic primer for what would become body horror. With dark carnival atmospheres and creepy doctor's offices, this story shows Bradbury in his horrific prime. Equal parts black comedy and grotesque horror, a tale that dares to reveal what your skin tries to hide. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. Passengers by Robert Silverberg: Proto-scifi horror. A gloomy tale of an alien invasion that has already been won. People try to go on with their lives, but a shadowy alien menace hovers over all. The invaders not only took over people's nations and communities, but their bodies too. Perverse and heartbreaking. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6. The Brood by Ramsey Campbell: A chilling tale of streetlight-lit bodies cast in deep shadow. Mysterious dark streets and long-abandoned houses hide weird and disturbing nighttime happenings. And then this story hits you with an ending that should not be read before bed if you need to actually sleep that night. Only Campbell can mix body horror and creeping dread like this. Nightmarish. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7. The Troubles of Dr. Thoss by Thomas Ligotti: One of the most disturbing stories ever written. Strange beings who visit at night and local rumors mix in this delirious blend of surreal horror. After many rereads it's still hard to pinpoint why this story is so disturbing, but it never fails at its mission. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8. The Road of Pins by Caitlin Kiernan: A master storyteller at the peak of their craft, The Road of Pins is just astonishing in its effectiveness. With sensuous prose mixed with superbly realized characters, you just want to drown in Kiernan's fiction. Strange films, fairy tales, and a monstrous killer merge in this delicious yet disturbing tale.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9. Born Stillborn by Brian Evenson: Mind fuckery at its finest. A man is seeing a psychiatrist during the day, yet a different psychiatrist may also be visiting him at night. Or are they the same person? A masterwork of delirium and confusion. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10. The Tangible Universe by Jeffrey Thomas: One of the masterpieces of the current era. A perfect mix of the abject and the beautiful. This is one of those rare stories where you really don't know how you should feel after reading it. Should you go scrub yourself clean in the shower or pick up the story and read it again, this time just allowing yourself to completely let yourself fall deeply under its subversive and corrupting spell. Absolutely unique and absolutely unforgettable. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-26357940142561339322022-10-21T00:53:00.001-04:002022-10-21T01:05:39.287-04:00Guest Review: The Whip and the Body by Brian O' Connell<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLDS6DM_YnAQJfgtNh5bGDFVRQOSz1jJFiWTt6k8bRX0bXJeOUB5vlUe3mpijiAAaiKMX44h1MN80PPFdPU7s5ThcA1k-2Nr0OYkhV78v0Kgu4liau8xrYMV0itue9Mk-zL6HcP3eb0QrNpB7SlDpdONe5AyQjyyO7loFJ_jmMSxVAk-q2n-4D8SY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLDS6DM_YnAQJfgtNh5bGDFVRQOSz1jJFiWTt6k8bRX0bXJeOUB5vlUe3mpijiAAaiKMX44h1MN80PPFdPU7s5ThcA1k-2Nr0OYkhV78v0Kgu4liau8xrYMV0itue9Mk-zL6HcP3eb0QrNpB7SlDpdONe5AyQjyyO7loFJ_jmMSxVAk-q2n-4D8SY=w400-h225" width="400" /></span></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do we enjoy horror stories? There have been a million attempted answers to the question, and almost none of them are satisfying—or entirely satisfying, at any rate. A common view holds that exposing ourselves to our deepest fears in a safe and artificial environment helps us prepare ourselves for and cope with them when they arrive in the real world, but this seems to fall apart with even the merest scrutiny: watching </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Antichrist</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would not seem to ease the pain of losing a child, for example, nor am I likely to recommend </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Audition</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to someone with a fear of needles. Stephen King, who once proposed this view in his 1981 survey of the genre </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Danse Macabre</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, has alternately contended that watching horror movies allows us to satiate our deepest, darkest instincts and thus to keep them at bay, but again, this suggestion fails to account for so much; when I walk out of an especially traumatic or upsetting picture, I don’t feel that anything has been “purged” from me, I feel </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">worse</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ligotti perhaps strikes closer to the mark when he argues that horror is the best genre for reflecting the eternal agony and absurdity of the mortal human consciousness, but I don’t think we can assume this holds true for a huge portion of the audience for horror movies, either. In each case the proposed answer seems either too trite, beholden to fundamentally conservative notions of art as serving some redemptive social or psychological function, or too specific, expressing a highly individual philosophy of life and existence that doesn’t adequately account for the genre’s popular appeal.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without hazarding a guess of my own, I’d like to examine another response to this perennial question, a response suggested by the great horror auteur Mario Bava in his 1963 Gothic chiller </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Unlike the above proposed explanations, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> almost radically centers a very simple and uncomplicated experience at the locus of the horror genre: that of pleasure. A strange kind of pleasure, to be sure, that derives itself from immersion in negative emotions, from scenes of death and degradation, from abject misery and anguish—but pleasure all the same. In short, the pleasures of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">masochism</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that curious disposition that finds gratification and fulfillment in the darkest of places.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Masochism is, indeed, what this suggestively titled picture has been most remembered for, owing to the numerous cuts demanded upon its release by various censorship boards in multiple nations. Its unsubtle allusions to “degenerations and anomalies of sexual life,” as a Roman court declared in 1963, occasioned the butchering of the 91-minute film into a nearly incomprehensible 77-minute international cut, released in the United States with the fittingly perplexing new title of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The furor was mostly due to an early scene in which the female protagonist Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) submits to an erotically charged lashing from her former paramour, the imperious Kurt Menliff (Christopher Lee). This brief sequence, in combination with its winking title, accounts for </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s reputation as a playfully kinky, if otherwise fairly standard and by-the-numbers, Italian Gothic of the early sixties. It’s not received nearly as much discussion as the consensus-held masterpieces of Bava’s oeuvre (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Sunday</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blood and Black Lace</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bay of Blood</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Sabbath</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> among them), and when it does, the sexual current of the film is spoken of mostly as if it were a gimmick, teased at in a few superficially titillating scenes but overall subordinate to the director’s stylishly gloomy atmospherics.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyWYXpxsGQVD2Kc2Fk5X6M_fU9iNVSsmdfiAJxPUF-XyQqE0btYp72UU3xrs4NGpHslqPUxNFnIJpDvgQw1-2Nplsreaqhj_xCtOSNDe9XBH1zYw3aTBrBWmB9yvVW-fs7ZVUsFR4uzhBLgi1KcAfGIl54r5W48K2VWWauz48HIUlZRsGbVNQUQP4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1000" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyWYXpxsGQVD2Kc2Fk5X6M_fU9iNVSsmdfiAJxPUF-XyQqE0btYp72UU3xrs4NGpHslqPUxNFnIJpDvgQw1-2Nplsreaqhj_xCtOSNDe9XBH1zYw3aTBrBWmB9yvVW-fs7ZVUsFR4uzhBLgi1KcAfGIl54r5W48K2VWWauz48HIUlZRsGbVNQUQP4" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s true that the slight scenes of masochism in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are quite tame by today’s standards, hitting nowhere near the level of explicitness or perversity that would come to be regular fare in exploitation films only a few years later. Indeed, following that initial whipping scene, Nevenka’s sexual proclivities are hardly ever addressed—or at least directly represented—again, outside of a few scant moments and mentions. It’s presumably this reticence, or even potential disinterest, in probing the extremes of its implications that has led many critics to ignore or significantly downplay the sexual tensions of the film, instead preferring to situate it within Bava’s overall oeuvre by addressing its familiar motifs. But to do so is to fail to recognize that masochism is integral to the very texture of the film: that in truth it is the film’s </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">principle </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subject, in ways far more fundamental and interesting than the mere surface play of its meager erotic scenes.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The narrative of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is very simple. Kurt, the eldest son of the Count Menliff (Gustavo de Nardo), has been exiled for his entanglement with the servant girl Tania, a dismal affair that ended in the girl’s suicide. Kurt had been engaged to the beautiful Nevenka; in his absence, she marries his younger brother Christian (Tony Kendall) instead. One dark night Kurt returns, distressing the entire family, most especially the mother of the servant girl (Harriet Medin), who longs for Kurt’s death. He coldly offers his congratulations to Nevenka and Christian, but he obviously wishes to reassert his place in both the nobility and Nevenka’s heart. On a dusky beach, he reignites their sadomasochistic entanglement, flogging her with a riding crop, reigniting in her a confused disorder of passions she had hoped to leave behind. But that very night, in a highly oblique and mysterious series of events, Kurt is murdered by an unknown culprit. Quite shortly after his death, his ghost begins to stalk the castle, leading Christian to investigate the mysterious circumstances of his murder and ultimately culminating in tragedy for Nevenka.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the surface, this reads like a stock Gothic plot, with only the barest hint of sexual sleaze to differentiate it from any other number of lurid Italian productions of the day. And it’s true that the plot is probably the very least interesting thing about </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the element that feels the most underdeveloped and unrealized. At times, when it focuses on Christian’s quest to determine the murderer, it can even feel downright laborious, merely a series of ponderously paced generic machinations to provide a flimsy canvas for Bava’s lush aestheticism. It’s hard to fault those who take issue with the somnambulant slowness of such predictable and well-worn genre clichés. The beauty and subtlety of the visual craft do not extend to the details of the screenplay.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the film nonetheless finds an emotional and thematic key in the personage of Daliah Lavi. Her performance as Nevenka is so completely absorbing that she even manages to upstage the great Christopher Lee, who by comparison comes off as stodgy and wooden. (In all fairness, the horrendous dubbing endemic to Italian films of the period can’t be helping.) In a production full of cardboard cut-out horror movie stereotypes, the psychological intensity and uneasy ambiguity of Lavi’s role emerges with startling force. It is in her that the film locates its dark core.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-8206dc4a-7fff-c307-d79e-487b8446ddec" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlvB85iEa-Tw_ZdiTqn69ZlkCA0S3Qff6dm9XBepX3JBohqUulhlvpyA7nqxjJmJ-GrDoq9pZ14OtT_v4D4dQyBAabMBE_G7fGM8UQXVQ1uuen6851ZbX9jfPDJsGamfKOp4auZOUnGoQmiNdI29tdv5ATWstFsuDtL9BQuml4fJ6qh4a8kvRrh0M" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1934" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlvB85iEa-Tw_ZdiTqn69ZlkCA0S3Qff6dm9XBepX3JBohqUulhlvpyA7nqxjJmJ-GrDoq9pZ14OtT_v4D4dQyBAabMBE_G7fGM8UQXVQ1uuen6851ZbX9jfPDJsGamfKOp4auZOUnGoQmiNdI29tdv5ATWstFsuDtL9BQuml4fJ6qh4a8kvRrh0M" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For even though it is only </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">overtly </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">addressed in the early scene on the beach, the performance makes it clear that Nevenka’s masochism permeates every aspect of her being. Her reaction to the haunting has a troubling ambivalence unfamiliar to the Gothic heroine of more conventional stories. Lavi intentionally acts in a manner that blurs the distinction between gasps of fright and moans of pleasure; when she shivers, it’s uncertain whether it’s out of fear or exhilaration. Terrified glances become indistinguishable from desirous ones. This is </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s real surprise: not the shallow tease of skin, but the sense that the horror is not inimical to, and perhaps even willed by, the person who we assumed was its victim.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider the film’s most frightening scene, a nocturnal visitation from Menliff’s ghost to Lavi’s bedchamber. After an extended period of excruciating build-up, during which the doorknob gradually turns at the touch of an unseen hand and Menliff’s silhouette (bearing the same riding crop) looms before the window, we are jolted by the terrifying image of his hand slowly extending toward her—toward </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—out of the darkness. She screams, but instead of running away, she rolls onto her back, an identical posture to that attitude of eager submission in the beach scene. The hand caresses her cruelly, commandingly, before tearing her nightgown open. These are the gestures of sadomasochistic theater as much as they are thrills in a horror set-piece. The fact that this sequence acts as a double of the earlier erotic encounter on the beach points to the dissolution of boundaries between death and desire, pain and pleasure, horror and fascination that the film will affect even further in subsequent scenes. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The truth is that Nevenka does seem to feel fear at all in response to Kurt’s return from the grave—or more accurately that her fear is indissoluble from, indeed </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">synonymous</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with, her happiness. For her, the haunting is not a curse or a nightmare, but a state of sexual fulfillment; the horror movie villain is not an antagonist, but the enforcer of her repressed desires. Over time, we come to see Kurt as </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">servicing</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Nevenka rather than terrorizing her. Certainly, he seems to at least understand her more than the supposedly virtuous Christian, who Nevenka witnesses engaging in an adulterous rendezvous with another woman. Heartbroken by his hypocrisy as much as his betrayal, she flees to a private room, where Menliff’s specter appears next to her in a mirror. She cowers and falls on the bed, where he whips her once more, more brutal than ever; but despite her theatrical protestations, she is quite discernibly and unequivocally moaning in sexual ecstasy, even smiling. “I’ve come for you,” Menliff tells her, in another telling double entendre. Quite contrary to the menacing threat we might typically interpret in such a statement, the implication is almost poignantly romantic. He has come </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> her, for her benefit, to serve her, because he knows this will make her happy, happier than she could ever be with the dull and proper Christian. For her dread and pain are inseparable from joy and eroticism: Kurt’s aggressive resurrection, by which he can exert total terror and dominance over her, thus presents the most complete realization of the masochistic scenario possible. And it is my contention that this masochism implicitly doubles and illuminates the pleasure we as audiences often take in horror as a genre: we are drawn to these macabre scenes and ghastly experiences </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for themselves</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not in spite of their negative emotions but </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of them, because we find in them a pure and indefinable gratification loosely analogous to the sexual titillation the masochist takes in pain.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLqDP_z2vOFRxL6YCEy18TXXl7sBNYSc79zgnY4PNz1A7pG0AXaBa4PzVmeZ0lluod5zyzUHHySy916qpUkkGk-UE_WkdSSGfDog_1KQEq8Ul8JRaL3ztkmz5pvOZ6SZ8GM_fCKYDj2LwynRQQu7Sx-UuVSBYEexpc1pFU9LpmGmaOQPMwsoQ4XFA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="640" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLqDP_z2vOFRxL6YCEy18TXXl7sBNYSc79zgnY4PNz1A7pG0AXaBa4PzVmeZ0lluod5zyzUHHySy916qpUkkGk-UE_WkdSSGfDog_1KQEq8Ul8JRaL3ztkmz5pvOZ6SZ8GM_fCKYDj2LwynRQQu7Sx-UuVSBYEexpc1pFU9LpmGmaOQPMwsoQ4XFA" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For clarity’s sake, it might be worth briefly contrasting this with a diametrically opposed but curiously complementary philosophy explored in another film: Michael Haneke’s infamous home invasion experiment </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Funny Games</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1997). The young torturers in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Funny Games</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have also come “for us”, the audience: the horrific violence they enact upon an unsuspecting bourgeois family is for our entertainment as viewers, an awareness rendered chillingly clear through a number of Brechtian fourth wall breaks. In this way, Haneke aims to expose, explore, and critique what he understands as the audience’s sadistic voyeurism, evidently the underlying fantasy not only of many a horror film but of numerous forms of media consumption relating to images of violence. But what we find in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> seems to suggest that this claim is limited, at least when it comes to the horror genre. Bava instead proposes a </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">masochistic </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">understanding of spectatorship, predicated on identification with the victim rather than with the killer. We come not to terrorize, but to be terrorized; our pleasure is not derived from the thought of inflicting violence on others, but from experiencing the fear and agony of being subjected to violence at a physical remove. We do not align ourselves with the hollow coldness of the sadistic Menliff, who doesn’t even have enough personality to securely latch onto, but with Nevenka’s dark and heated passions, her inexplicable lust for pain. The terror she experiences is a crucial part of the thrill, the central and consensual term both of her unspoken contract with Menliff and our contract as viewers with a filmmaker: she wants this, and so do we.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Viewed through this lens, the whole of Bava’s filmic style takes on an almost subversive new meaning. The creaky trappings of old dark house pictures are reframed as the fetishistic signifiers of a totalized perverse fantasy: the fluttering curtains that bind and strangle Menliff before his death; the sinuous hanging branches that grope and choke the shadowy </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mise-en-scène </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the ancestral vault; the darkened passageways, sliced by slats of icy light, that come to resemble the internal passageways of the human body. The more her madness progresses, the more Nevenka herself seems to merge with this environment, which comes to feel closer to a fearsome emanation of her ghastly desires than anything else. When Christian discovers her swooning in Menliff’s crypt late in the film, the panting sighs she emits as she languishes on the stone floor are more suggestive of necrophiliac euphoria than the shock of a kidnapping victim. The men are baffled, try to impose explanations, but she remains steadfast in her solitary quest. And Bava recognizes that, at least in art, this obscene pursuit has an inevitably suicidal terminus. The ending, which goes so far as to suggest that the ghost may have been a hallucinatory manifestation of Nevenka’s desires the entire time—not that the difference ultimately matters—finds her plunging a dagger into her breast to Christian’s great horror. But this penetration is also a consummation, and she expires with the stamp of contentment on her face. “Let’s hope she’s free of him forever,” Christian mournfully remarks, but the final shot of hellish flames blazing over the smoldering remains of the riding crop suggests that her violent delights may not be extinguished even in death.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An exemplary early sequence, just as the haunting is beginning, shows Nevenka wandering the midnight corridors of the castle, drawn by an unusual sound to a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. Bava intercuts between shots of the door and ever-intensifying close-ups of Lavi’s face as she approaches. Light and shadow play so delicately across her features that we’re unable to clearly identify her expression. We hear her quick, short pants of agitation, but it is impossible to tell if her mouth is curling in a grimace or a smile, if her widened eyes suggest building anxiety or yearning anticipation. By the time she is turning the handle the tension has reached an almost unbearable pitch, but, as any horror fan knows, the sickening frisson of suspense is also a source of ardent excitement. What lies beyond that door? Her worst nightmare? Or her darkest desire? The singular pleasure of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Whip and the Body</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is to suggest that there is no difference.</span></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-47946928727033904102022-10-10T01:42:00.000-04:002022-10-10T01:42:36.648-04:00Review: Anders Fager's Swedish Cults<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6vdHruHNY2OUMAxB0O2ukErUD41gE-sgXQwH7_6sAl7wDXZrbz-Em-6BGpPPXX4xkJhQgnz4IvEOpB-Ig4lZYdlXKJ5mqI5SwDxoAR9CZTRTnqSB1VHOus2laturha1rjnNyYPFg3l3FYcLrEQv_isvVa6JRezPu5i1vgQAEHCfLiY91Esf69DQE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="503" data-original-width="325" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6vdHruHNY2OUMAxB0O2ukErUD41gE-sgXQwH7_6sAl7wDXZrbz-Em-6BGpPPXX4xkJhQgnz4IvEOpB-Ig4lZYdlXKJ5mqI5SwDxoAR9CZTRTnqSB1VHOus2laturha1rjnNyYPFg3l3FYcLrEQv_isvVa6JRezPu5i1vgQAEHCfLiY91Esf69DQE=w258-h400" width="258" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the next couple of months, I will be featuring books from one of my favorite presses, Valancourt Books. Valancourt is an amazing small press that specializes in reprinting mostly rare or out-of-print genre fiction with a focus on horror. They also publish a wide assortment of classic horror from around the world. They are truly one of the greats working today and are just doing amazing work. Their catalog of obscure classics and offbeat masterpieces is amazing and highly recommended. They have recently published a series of anthologies that attempt to showcase the best in short horror fiction from non English speaking countries, namely The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories vol 1 and 2. And now the success of that series has resulted in some collections of some of those authors' works being translated by Valancourt and seeing release in late 2022. The three anthologies I’m referring to being released are Anders Fager’s Swedish Cults ( from Sweden ), Attila Veres’s The Black Maybe ( from Hungary ), and Luigi Musolino’s A Different Darkness ( from Italy ). All three of these authors made a huge impression with their works in The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories vol 1. And I will be reviewing all three of these as they come out. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-08dde368-7fff-0a3a-0088-2a6558a3641d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first book I will be reviewing is Anders Fager’s Swedish Cults. Fager’s story in the Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories vol 1, titled Backstairs, shocked me with how good it was. Both a deliciously slow burn and a rare example of erotic horror done correctly. Backstairs is just a complete masterpiece of a short story, with perfect pitch, suspenseful, and an ending that will leave your jaw on the floor. So I was very excited to see Valancourt was translating and releasing this collection, Fager’s first. A critical success in Europe and almost completely unknown in the United States. It was with huge anticipation that I opened Swedish Cults and dug in, and I am glad to say I was not disappointed. In Swedish cults, Fager writes about our current society with very familiar characters, who end up coming face to face with some kind of hideous evil or some kind of cosmic horror. Some of these stories make explicit references to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, while others are a bit more oblique. I would say the work in Swedish Cults is an intentional homage and update to the Cthulhu Mythos. But Anders makes it personal by going heavy in kink and featuring some very questionable protagonists. Social media-addicted schoolgirls, opportunistic social climbers, and oversexed bosses, all fighting against some nameless cosmic horror. Anders has an amazing grasp on characterization, but he also knows how to create a weird and disturbing atmosphere. In his updating and reinvention of the Cthulhu Mythos, Anders makes it his own, paying homage to past masters while creating his own dark fictive universe. His main characters tend to be selfish, promiscuous females, a breed rarely seen in mass-market paperbacks or even in Lovecraft’s own fiction. His work is kink heavy and often will turn a corner into the cruel and harsh. His female characters almost seem to have been brought out of some underground erotic comic book, so fully sexual and self-actualized. But these girls are far more fleshed out and alive than the cardboard bimbos of comic books. Depraved desires abound in these tales, a sexuality rarely found in horror literature and found in full effect here. Comparisons to Clive Barker and Caitlin Kiernan are fully earned. This book is a refreshing blast of Swedish air, reinvigorating the horror genre while also bringing classic tropes into a new era. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cruel, sexual women facing against nameless abominations and body snatching others. Sexuality is celebrated, Ander’s sexual main characters aren't really shown in a negative light, sometimes they courted the darkness and almost get ruined by it, but there is always something in the darkness they want, that they desire, the darkness is never fully unbidden. I would say Fager is very sex-positive in this collection and he makes some really interesting choices on who to feature as main characters for these stories. These characters are dark, they are perverted, they are outside of what society would consider healthy, but each one is happy with themselves and you don’t feel any condensation from the author, more that he sympathizes with them. In most modern horror, the horror comes from some dark place in the psyche of the protagonist. The horror is often directly related to the subconscious of the main character, some buried guilt or unresolved anxiety. In these tales, the characters have darkness in them, but the horrors seem to stem from outside themselves. A different darkness to try to overshadow their own darkness. These are very self-actualized women. The girls are in consensual kink-driven relationships for the most part. One is a trophy wife, not having to work and able to live a life better than most of her peers, and she loves it. One is a boss of an assistant she slaps around and degrades and they both enjoy it. These are not the innocent victims of classic horror literature, nor the good academic men of the classic Lovecraft mode. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first story tells of a group of barely legal schoolgirls who like to do schoolgirl things, talk on the phone, post on social media, buy cute outfits, and seduce older men and lure them to their deaths for the pleasure of some ancient monstrosity that lives in the swamplands outside of town. It’s like taking a YA novel about high school girls, perving it up, and then subjecting the girls to Lovecraftian horrors. Another story is about a woman dating a well-to-do businessman who may just be on the move to becoming rich. She desires a man to take care of her, both financially and emotionally, and her man is more than happy to have such a pretty girl in his life he can take care of. After returning back from a business trip, something has happened to him, something changes, and he comes back sickly and different. When he gets home he lays in bed, wasting away, becoming more and more skeletal each night. But, he now has a raging erection that will not stop, and he now has certain different tastes and certain different desires. The last story is about an artist and gallery owner who is always seeking what’s new and how to maintain being relevant. She has a kinky relationship with her female secretary, with whom she lives a kind of sadomasochistic fantasy life with. Then one day someone enters her life wanting to fund a new art project. Someone rich and wanting something new and transgressive. Something that will break the minds of all involved.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a major work, and its translation to English is a major event. This is a must-read for any horror fan. For anyone who is interested in Lovecraft or erotic horror, this is an auto-include on your bookshelf. For fans of writers like Livia Llewellyn, Caitlin Kiernan, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert Bloch. Equal parts erotic, pulpy, bleak, and playful. You will be hearing more from this author. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-8695072410316687702022-07-29T02:21:00.000-04:002022-07-29T02:21:48.892-04:00Review: Pornography for the End of the World by Brendan Vidito<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4eRDUC6PDcxW2uZk6OPcaY1YGqZXKl4otOZbx1VgXklqZFvQbXWMJoS2bgB39XaKEd_fRyFaYtnJSIlpsiKoScVijtJdUJnaztGLBR03wqxa87d3Hq54F86I8xmx7somZDckmVSvdrPwahKkbbXPZKhaXN5w8MhMIfbYfVBhjRf0SU31uW16ABSc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="852" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4eRDUC6PDcxW2uZk6OPcaY1YGqZXKl4otOZbx1VgXklqZFvQbXWMJoS2bgB39XaKEd_fRyFaYtnJSIlpsiKoScVijtJdUJnaztGLBR03wqxa87d3Hq54F86I8xmx7somZDckmVSvdrPwahKkbbXPZKhaXN5w8MhMIfbYfVBhjRf0SU31uW16ABSc=w250-h400" width="250" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What purpose does horror literature serve? To frighten, to make you turn on the lights and shiver at what could be waiting in the shadows outside? To make you wonder at what sort of strange beings may exist out there in the limitless dark of the universe? To make you look at your own body and feel a sense of vertigo at how alien, how removed you really are from your flesh? Yes and yes and yes. But also horror literature serves as a kind of celebration of the dark, a sort of eroticism of the inhuman and the unnerving. And I do fully mean it when I say eroticism. Are Sacher-Masoch and George Bataille so far removed from H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti? Is the exploration of the strange skeletal womb of the derelict spaceship in Alien so far removed from the exploration of so many spread legs of countless pornographic films? </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-1981b37f-7fff-eba4-a40f-be2a2a8a7a81"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">And with this, we come to the intertwined connection of eroticism and horror. And we come to Brendan Vidito’s new collection of horror tales aptly named Pornography for the End of the World. Brendan is a up and coming talent in the horror literature scene. This is his second collection after the also aptly named Nightmares in Ecstasy. Brendan is a connoisseur, and his fiction reads as love letters to the genre he is obsessed with: Horror. You can see all kinds of influences that he unabashedly plays with and explores. Silent Hill. Junji Ito. Hellraiser. David Cronenberg. Ramsey Campbell. All fetishistic names and titles in Brendan’s world. In this way, Brendan follows in a tradition established by such writers as Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, and Karl Edward Wager, in experimenting with forms and genres, paying homage and using influence to further the genre, and most of all showing an absolute delight in the pleasures and possibilities of fantasy and horror. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pornography for the End of the World is a collection of what I can only take to be, Brendan's own cherished nightmares. From the body-changing carnal desires of The Chimera Season with its hints of polyamory and sexual swinging, Mother’s Mark with its exploration of objectification of sexual partners, and Walking in Ash with its fantasies of seeing the death of your loved one, Brendan is not afraid to use the horror genre to explore taboo areas of sex and hunger. Also contained in Pornography for the End of the World are tales of a more dark and pessimistic tone. Apate’s Children focuses on abuse and the ramifications of being an abuser and Glitterati Guignol is a survival horror epic of desperation and fear. And I think the two masterpieces of the collection are The Living Column, an absolute masterpiece of cosmic horror, worm-infested body horror, and an ecstatic delving into perversion, and The Human Clay, a surreal mixture of cum soaked technology and aberrant flesh. This is a pornography of horror in all the best ways. Brendan is fetishistic and obsessive with his love of horror, and I think the brave reader will delight in getting lost in the psychosexual landscapes of Pornography for the End of the World. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like Max Renn falling through the endless depths of Videodrome, Brendan Vidito takes the reader on his own explorations of hallucinatory and erotic horror. Like Max Renn, you will be confused at first, but then after a while, you will enjoy the pleasures of trying new things. I fully feel that Pornography for the End of the World is one of the best collections to have come out recently and fully expect Brendan to keep cultivating and producing these most elegant and delightful of nightmares. Encore Brendan… encore…</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-76065574385069248922022-06-13T02:41:00.000-04:002022-06-13T02:41:53.316-04:00Review: North American Lake Monsters<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqnF37ODdrRy62HUTJnNrzk6iMGzqPLrH2jH_TB_XI96qDGjlS-C7e_NyAEkKtz2aQMAsOzFdSsY2pc6-IhAM4Fqubfxqq1AyzEVPgouAKklTg61Q0A4mWcA52D1RWu11MgTagXtJ_u03OHMvwr2TMxy5yCeSXiTk_RgnxWpfKnRVfkjldnnjc5wI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="324" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqnF37ODdrRy62HUTJnNrzk6iMGzqPLrH2jH_TB_XI96qDGjlS-C7e_NyAEkKtz2aQMAsOzFdSsY2pc6-IhAM4Fqubfxqq1AyzEVPgouAKklTg61Q0A4mWcA52D1RWu11MgTagXtJ_u03OHMvwr2TMxy5yCeSXiTk_RgnxWpfKnRVfkjldnnjc5wI=w260-h400" width="260" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me just say this right up front. Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters is one of the greatest horror collections ever published. An absolutely unique voice, deeply fleshed-out characters, and plot lines that will both break your heart and shock you. Nathan’s focus is on the regular 9-5 “common person” trying to get by. One of the major themes of the collection is characters who are trying to find some kind of compromise. Things are never gonna be great, but is there a way to make life worth living, and what price do you have to pay? To learn to live with compromise, to take what you can get, to learn to be happy with the only choices you have, to live with the decisions you make, is the crux of many of these tales. Also, a major theme in this collection is failure. When confronted with the supernatural, with malignant evil or forces beyond your control, human beings… fail. They cry and they beg and they run. And somehow Nathan manages to mix such bleak themes with a poetic beauty, these are gorgeous stories of heartbreak and ruin. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan reminds us that the horror tale is not just one of cultivating fear or providing the reader with a fun rollercoaster ride of adrenaline. Here the horror tale explores the ways we are transformed by the dark, by the strange horrors we can find ourselves lost in. How dark can things get and still be able to find a way to live with it. There is a strong feeling of despair to these stories, things will never be what you had hoped they would be. His writing is a prose of pain, of emotion. Of rending hearts and silent cries alone in the night. His mastery of character is so rare in horror fiction. Breaking from the tradition of Lovecraft and Ligotti, his stories revolve around the characters. They are absolutely real, as you read his work you feel like one of these characters could have been someone you worked with or had talked to briefly at the bus stop. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-71fc3e24-7fff-1ed3-d13e-d21393db6a08"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan is a master of the elliptical tale. His stories in this are never what you think they will be about from a brief plot description or the beginning pages of the tale. He is not interested much in big exciting set pieces here. Here he delves into the most private thoughts of his characters, the secrets that they will tell no one, the shames and the regrets that fester in their soul. These are explorations of humanity, raw and unfiltered. You see yourself, in your most private and exposed moments here, facing the dark and the uncertainty of existence. Because you become so connected to the characters, because you understand their plight, the horrors in the tales are just that much more hard-hitting. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some brief descriptions of the tales contained within:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Go Where It Takes You. The perfect story to open up the collection on. And also one of the rare stories that actually emotionally messed me up when I finished it. It is a real sucker punch to the face. Absolutely heartbreaking and disturbing in equal measure. A strange man walks into a single mom’s life. He meets her at her waitress job at this run-down diner. This story of the vortex of darkness one can find oneself in, brought into your life by some strange yet intriguing man who promises to help you, reminds me of a Ray Bradbury story, but with a denouncement so bleak that Bradbury wouldn't have dared. When life has failed you, will you take a chance at a new beginning, no matter what the cost? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wild Acre. A tale of beasts and how we live with traumatic events we are forced to live through and how they affect us in the long term. When our lives are on the line, when our friends are in danger, how will we react? And is surviving no matter what worth it? </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">S.S. A young man trapped in a life of embarrassment and despair. When he sees a lifeline out, a monstrous path he could take, but one that is better than the life he is living now, is it right to take that path? A tale that is genius in the way it shifts in and out from harsh realism to subtle and surreal dream imagery</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Crevasse. A bleak tale set in Antarctica. An expedition team has to bring an injured man back to basecamp, but then encounter a strange hole in the ice, a hole that has held a secret for eons. The sounds of whimpering dogs lost in the eternal night. A homage to classic cosmic horror tales but one only Ballingrud could have written.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monsters of Heaven. A tale of strange beings falling from the sky. Beings strange, silent, and... sexual. People kidnap these things, injured from their descent from the sky, and hide them in their homes. Some people even call these alien things... "angels".</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunbleached. The lure of the dark and seductive and the price you pay when you get what you want. A classic vampire story told in a unique way. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">North American Lake Monsters. We kill what we don’t understand. And sometimes we are the monsters of the story. A mood piece and an examination of how we react to the strangeness of our lives.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Way Station. We live lives unknowable to others. And our private hurts and fears can shape our world in very real ways. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Good Husband. A tale that shows how bleak a horror story can be. It reminds me a lot of Bob Clark’s film Deathdream. Maybe a hint of Eyes Without A Face? A story that does not look away from pain but explores it to its limit. A real test of endurance, how much misery can a reader handle?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world we inhabit is a bleak one. A vast infinite black emptiness hangs over our heads, and we scavenge on this cold dark earth for whatever pleasures we can grab before we die. But all the same, we try to love, to give, to nurture, to try to hang on to some small glimmer of hope. Even in the darkest of times. What hope can be born from the repulsive, the abhorrent? What faith can we find in this weak and failing flesh? What compromises must we make and what long-standing dreams must we leave behind to find some kind of happiness? These are the questions Nathan’s stories in North American Lake Monsters ask. His monsters are beautiful in their cruelty and loving in their malice. They represent something beyond the day-to-day life, the banal work days and lonely nights. They represent mystery and transgression. Something to long for and desire even as it ruins you. Smoking cigarettes, drinking whisky, desiring the shadowy and the inhuman, the poisonous things we do to make life livable. These beautifully rendered visions of a compromised hope, of a longing for more in a world of dirt and failure. There is an honesty to horror, an acknowledgment that the world is a harsh, cruel, and bizarrely unknowable place. Yet beauty can still be found. And hope, even in the darkest of places. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-49061488551840974132022-06-09T01:45:00.000-04:002022-06-09T01:45:06.011-04:00Review: Men<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7V1xEKd9rZvUIZqRJKkoI3Er8dmMySR6dSxAFqzuHu00cPJdksEzZYwI42RvySLROXBOY3WY9w4BhQRszBiHlLSuVWmsJ3pTiAoMuOU04M_1WGUPT1LVakNxpdL9ZwCNObCMQGyGQObKlglMlio5LREe0YglPbikJTxssEH6ndVWCm_V7KdtaaZU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1778" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7V1xEKd9rZvUIZqRJKkoI3Er8dmMySR6dSxAFqzuHu00cPJdksEzZYwI42RvySLROXBOY3WY9w4BhQRszBiHlLSuVWmsJ3pTiAoMuOU04M_1WGUPT1LVakNxpdL9ZwCNObCMQGyGQObKlglMlio5LREe0YglPbikJTxssEH6ndVWCm_V7KdtaaZU=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-350d0885-7fff-9e8e-1b70-9647391fe2a3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Men, directed by Alex Garland, seemingly came out of nowhere, a bit of a teaser trailer but that’s it really for promotion. His previous films, Ex Machina and Annihilation, showed promise as a director of real vision, an intellectual director with things to say. And now his new film Men is out, and I think with Men he has delivered his most personal and most accomplished film yet. There are also virtuoso acting performances from Jessie Buckley playing Harper and Rory Kinnear playing every man in the film, and a genius soundtrack by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow. The film centers on Harper, a woman hurting from a recent disastrous breakup with her husband. He threatens to kill himself after she tells him she wants a divorce. He then seemingly falls ( he may have purposely jumped ) out of a window above her apartment, landing on a fence, splitting his arm in two, and bleeds to death right there on the sidewalk. An emotionally wounded Harper rents a house in a small out of the way village to get some air and some mental space. The house is gorgeous, surrounded by a vast forest and beautiful countryside. But while she is trying to get some distance from the trauma of the breakup she keeps running into these strange random men. They start off lurking around her, in the background, but then they start to assert themselves more and more into her life. They seem to hold some kind of bias against her, they all want to either want to degrade her or imply that she was at fault for her ex-husband's death, even though she has never met them before and they really shouldn’t know anything about her. They range from openly accusatory, to insultingly dismissive of her. And the threat of the men just keeps increasing to the point of them stalking her at her house and then trying to break in. The first half of the film is a masterwork of tension and slow-building dread. Then in the second half, the film escalates into just insane body horror and maybe even a nebulous undercurrent of cosmic horror. A lot of films falter at such a transition but the film’s logic is solid and earns it. What follows is a closer look at the film and does contain spoilers. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the men in the film are played by Rory Kinnear, all of them insidiously threatening to Harper and somehow all related in their disdain of her. Having the same actor play all the men certainly adds a subtle hallucinatory quality to the film that just increases its nightmarish feeling. From implying that she should have just given her ex-husband a chance to apologize after he was physically abusive to her and, that it may in fact have been her fault he died, to policemen dismissing her as paranoid when she complains of a naked man stalking her outside her rental. The men are an utter delirium of toxic masculinity. Towards the end they start to seem to have a joint purpose and even share the same wound after Harper cuts one down the length of its arm, splitting the arm in two, which is also the same type of wound her ex-husband died from. All the scenes of the men subjecting themselves on Harper have this creeping intensity and are just dread-inducing sequences. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj6xNXZgva5oU5gYJzw5mJDTdmsuCgqPu3uAe6k5OWKu8sXBnWQmhiQWSKsYLn3YbzxkyhPEtXJ6G7pnFgA6y2o4yHZKrveThhF5FGbqwxUWxkCIvD5FUSf4WekWcxUfEQyaZilUP5z2IQTsRy4VBwsttjhTxPxRmtgAAU5rCDpfn5aY9Wshhn43Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1400" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj6xNXZgva5oU5gYJzw5mJDTdmsuCgqPu3uAe6k5OWKu8sXBnWQmhiQWSKsYLn3YbzxkyhPEtXJ6G7pnFgA6y2o4yHZKrveThhF5FGbqwxUWxkCIvD5FUSf4WekWcxUfEQyaZilUP5z2IQTsRy4VBwsttjhTxPxRmtgAAU5rCDpfn5aY9Wshhn43Q" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film overtly is about the horrors of relationships and desire, after all, what is more strange than the person sleeping in bed with you? Seemingly a nightmare of brutish men that seek to control and manipulate in the name of love. While toxic masculinity is one of the main themes of the film there is an undercurrent of a differing interpretation. There are underlying hints, easily missed, that there may be another side to the story. Is Harper as innocent as she seems? Between subtle lies she tells to the pointed avoidance of any details of her and her husband's relationship before the breakup, the film pointedly does not fully back up the men as monsters thread, not fully anyway. What if the recurring men of the title actually are externalized figures of her subconscious? The film is both so allusive with its intentions and so over the top with its aggressive imagery you could make the case that maybe Harper is an unreliable narrator and the film is shown from some dark side of her perspective. Maybe she had actually wanted her ex-husband to die and the film is a projection of her tormented psyche? If you said that the film is actually about Harper in some way intentionally killing her husband, and the film centers on her fleeing from the externalized regret and guilt, personified as the monstrous, nothing about the film would have to be changed. The film allows both a reading of a woman tormented by a corrupting masculine force, but also hints that a woman's sexuality can torment and manipulate a man, to the brink of destruction and breakdown. Where the film shines is in its examination of human relationships and interactions, at their most nightmarish, and is brave enough to be unsparing in its focus. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the end, the men are shown to actually be pathetic and degraded, pleading with Harper to take him/it back. The men/thing seems powerless before her sexuality. The men develop female sex organs and start birthing and rebirthing themselves over and over. All the while begging for her to accept it back into her life. A filmic moment as powerful as similar scenes in Society and Eraserhead, likewise delving deep into a Beckettian horror of the body and its functions. The ending is just genius filmmaking, in the best traditions of surrealist horror, searing images into your brain that will live in your nightmares for years. Then the film ends on this extremely ambiguous note. Does Harper take him back? Or does she kill him and end this horror? The film refuses to say. It may read as a transgressive subversion of the “final girl” trope. You expect a badass girl power moment in the end, for the disgusting and abusive men to be defeated by a justified and therapeutic act of vengeance from Harper. But that is not what we get, which leaves one in a state of confusion. Is this film not what we were led to believe? Men ends not in predictable stereotypical cliches but in utter mystery.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibZcMJMjhr5X1wDFI6TtHdBIuM-pcd-FOOxkiubeDQvhqJN5aMioCZKouxU-U4O8EUZ5HJH0_juIaGi3Gy9AQ_C8km1KSGodIXZwWLFdKpfFeqz_WkDNCnqJFYWcY5eff9uOjN7lBsdTJFrrMRQX6XdLQAFHAdhGVBl8UzSMT32AExsB_1Ntw_rd4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1228" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibZcMJMjhr5X1wDFI6TtHdBIuM-pcd-FOOxkiubeDQvhqJN5aMioCZKouxU-U4O8EUZ5HJH0_juIaGi3Gy9AQ_C8km1KSGodIXZwWLFdKpfFeqz_WkDNCnqJFYWcY5eff9uOjN7lBsdTJFrrMRQX6XdLQAFHAdhGVBl8UzSMT32AExsB_1Ntw_rd4" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Men stands as a new classic of horror cinema. A part of a new canon of classics alongside such films as Under the Skin, The Witch, Hereditary, The Untamed, Evolution, and The Neon Demon. With themes of dehumanization, the breakdown of a classical sense of reality, the collapse of the family unit, a revitalized focus on the female protagonist alongside the failure of the male hero, and a sense of an unrelenting future coming of failure and ruin. These films guide us into this strange new century as guideposts of where we are at and examinations of what is to come. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6631833432962138678.post-2976654698458578962022-05-13T02:04:00.004-04:002022-05-13T02:21:46.621-04:00Review: Richard Gavin's Grotesquerie<div class="separator"><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="880" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRcXOJ-JXUo0_7Ntsxxr_lmYJ_X_64SGV1BJnm3BFhWH4mYprpFcrkGx--kj-p2Bb8P8VwXtJYQD7k94E4hggByRrk7MwuTt73pUrH1d0xbpJhAniJjmyEMLkBDBMgVfp-En8Nvl_G6hMoVLsUECcCl8xcac6lj1ZdSNvJWAZ14mogUgxNw0OjcVs=w258-h400" style="color: #0000ee;" width="258" /></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does grotesque mean? A radical departure from the natural, the expected, or the typical. Absurdly incongruous. Fanciful, bizarre. In Richard Gavin’s new collection Grotesquerie, the book certainly lives up to the name. In this collection Gavin plunges deep into grotesquery, there is a radical deformation of reality in each story. He sets out to corrupt our safe worldview in each story, every time in new and ever more unsettling ways. Characters find out how close pure nightmare is to their day-to-day lives, one wrong step, one horrible decision, meeting the wrong person, and you may wind up in this place of profound dark reality. These are diseased stories, some kind of decay slowly, subtly rising up and by the end, the rot has completely taken over. I would also say this is Gavin at his most murky, and by that I mean these stories feel like drowning in some fetid swamp, water black with lichen and fungus, a swamp that has never seen the light from the sun. Meanings are vague and the stories kind of shift around in unexpected ways. These stories are abstract, diseased, surreal, and disturbing. This collection finds Gavin really going for the throat of his readers, these stories are meant to disturb and to make the reader uneasy. While in past collections his influences may have been more Blackwood and Machen, in this one his influences seem to be more Ligotti and Aickman, There is an insidious underside to these tales. A willful descent into delirium. Desired dooms and erotic anxiety. There is a sexual edge to some of these stories, a descent into perversity and the darker realms of fetish. This is certainly a more edgy Gavin, more of a drive to transgression and perversity than we are used to seeing from him. Grotesquerie may be his most horrific collection yet. </span></p><p></p><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-60a105ba-7fff-911e-466e-67ea1922486c"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are tales with ideas behind them, this is intellectual horror in the best of ways. Gavin is exploring a certain worldview. Maybe he is also seeking a kind of salvation in darkness? His dedication to craft and his love for the genre is apparent in each of these tales. What his characters endure, live through, and survive may be dark and horrendous but there is revelation there for those who seek it. There are lessons to be learned, wherever in the lowest pits of hell or in the darkest of abysses, there is knowledge waiting for the adventurous. Gavin is one of the great names in horror fiction today, an absolute master of the literature and a student of the field. And Grotesquerie stands as one of the great works of our era. Here I will touch a little on some of my favorite works of the collection:</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banishments: which opens the collection, is a legitimate descent into nightmare. As the tale goes on it goes deeper and more intently into the realm of the surreal and the nebulous. This story never allows you to gain your footing and just when you think you know where the story is heading, Gavin twists the narrative again, leaving you lost in shadow and darkness. This is a tale of a coffin. A coffin containing a decayed and diseased form floating in a post-disaster flooded river.. The coffin lands on the black earth. The inverse of birth. A strange new kind of emergence presents itself. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neithernor: One of the weirdest stories I have ever read. A tale of a man looking for a present for his wife and the strange art… and artist he discovers. Written for a Robert Aickman tribute anthology, this tale shares Aickman’s reluctance to make his subject matter obvious while also taking Aickman’s subtle perversities and amping them up. One of the things the stories delight in, in Grotesque, is leaving the reader in darkness and confusion by the end, and this tale shares that perversity. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scold’s Bridle: A Cruelty: an absolutely delicious tale of torture devices, bondage and discipline, and desperation, all told in a subdued way, undercutting the debased subject matter. A rare horror tale that actually succeeded in pushing the edge and is genuinely shocking. This story stands out from the collection also for being a non-supernatural tale, almost a conte cruel of fetishistic dark erotica. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the Final: One of the greatest “tribute” stories I have ever read. This one was written for the Grimscribe’s Puppets anthology dedicated to the master of the horror tale, Thomas Ligotti. And I would be hard-pressed to think of another tale that so delves into a writer's work and works as this obsessive and dark love letter to the work of Ligotti. Full of subtle homages and directly engaging with many of the themes you would find in Ligotti’s work, Gavin is obviously a student and a fan of his and you can tell with the love and the care that went into crafting this tale. Just an amazing story.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sullied Plane: Horror erotica at its finest. Imagine Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, in its sexual frankness, meets Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, in its atmosphere of weird tentacled beings, things made of shadow, lurking just out of sight… but told in a whisper. Strange and secret couplings may or may not be happening behind the scenes of a family New Year's Eve party. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crawl Space Oracle: A tale of users and being used. Also, there is a slight hint of cuckoldry hidden in the background. A tale of a woman who connects with an old friend to try to get some financial advice, only to have the tables turned and for her to be the one to be of use. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I highly recommend Grotesquerie to anyone who loves great horror fiction. Grotesquerie both pays homage to the long tradition of horror fiction and blazes new trails, creates new forms and new directions for horror to take. I would say this volume stands with the best works to have come out in this new era of horror. Grotesquerie, alongside Brian Evenson’s The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters, Adam Nevill’s Wyrd and Other Derelections, Samantha Hunt’s The Dark Dark, and Augustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh, all stand as a new corpus of horror literature for the 21st century. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div>Scott Dwyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02843731920893934630noreply@blogger.com0